The last we saw the Iron King, Cardale Jones, First of His Name, Poacher of Badgers, Controller of Tides, Slayer of Ducks, Troll Sultan, and 12th Son of Ohio, he was outplaying the Heisman Trophy winner en route to Ohio State's 8th championship.
Today, however, he sat down with the national fly on the Woody Hayes Athletic Center's walls, Pete Thamel of SportsIllustrated.com, to give a wide-ranging interview on everything from his life on campus since winning a title, the NFL agent feeding frenzy over his services, and of course, #QBgeddon.
Does he regret returning to Columbus? Not at all:
No regrets. One of the greatest pieces of advice I had from someone—I don’t want to say who it was—but he told me no matter what I do, if I decide to go to the NFL, be all in. If I go back to school, be all in and try to be the best and win the starting spot. And then worry about the NFL next year. Don’t go back to school and say, "Oh, I should’ve left." Or don’t go to the NFL and say, "Oh, I should’ve stayed in school another year."
Shoutout to the sage advising Cardale Jones.
But, boilerplate aside, imagine being 22-years-old, trying to learn sign language, and dealing with yahoos like this:
It was tough the first couple weeks of class. Everybody was just so fascinated I was in the classroom, and I actually had to complain to the teacher, like everyone staring at me 24/7 in class, guys tapping on the window trying to get my attention and stuff like that, and it’s kind of distracting. Somebody complained to the teacher I was distracting in class. Not so much complained, but told her, you know, I was a distraction, things like that.
I could see how that would get old real quick, but much like a helpless Alabama defender, Cardale Jones refuses to be brought down by it:
I don’t go to the mall on weekends anymore, try to go on off days like Mondays or Tuesdays. It’s little stuff like that, try to avoid so much of the attention. Wherever I’m at, I take every single picture no matter who asks me. Sometimes it gets tiring and you want to get in and go out. I don’t go out, I don’t smoke or drink or anything like that, but we go out as a team and that gets annoying because everybody wants to stop and take pictures and I don’t want to be that guy.
The Iron King is a kind and benevolent overlord, indeed. You can tell he's come a long way since the "We ain't come here to play school!" days (and that was even before he had to deal with idiots who think creepily tapping on classroom windows is an acceptable form of behavior).
Among other things: Cardale is a hefty 250 right now (he'll drop to 240 during the season); he didn't want to do that press conference and agrees Parris Campbell is a name to watch.
The full interview can be read here. As with anything featuring Cardale Jones dropping #takes, it's recommended reading.
