A few days before Ohio State’s primetime showdown with Oklahoma, Buckeyes left tackle Jamarco Jones received a text message from a familiar face.
Jones’ friend and mentor, former Ohio State All-American Taylor Decker, reached out to wish him good luck. Decker, a three-year starter for the Buckeyes up front who now starts for the Detroit Lions, showed Jones the ropes for his first two years in Columbus.
“[Decker] texted us good luck before the Oklahoma game,” Jones said. “I still talk to Taylor, Chase [Farris] and all those guys.”
When the two talk, it’s often not about football, but more about life in general. But wherever Decker watched last Saturday’s 45-24 victory over the Sooners, he was certainly proud of his protegé.
Ohio State rolled Oklahoma thanks to a dominating offensive performance. The Buckeyes racked up 443 total yards of offense — 291 of which came on the ground — as they completely controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.
Against the Sooners, Jones, Pat Elflein, Billy Price, Michael Jordan and Isaiah Prince more than made up for what Urban Meyer considered average performances from the offensive line in the first two games of the season.
“That was a great team we played, so being able to go out there and execute some of our stuff against a really good team, it feels good,” Jones said. “But there’s a bunch we need to clean up. Those guys played really hard and gave us a good challenge so we gotta watch film and clean some things up and keep going.”
For starters, Ohio State knows it needs to shore up the penalties. The Buckeyes committed 11 in the win over the Sooners, the majority of which came on offense when the team seemed to have some trouble getting lined up properly.
Jones said offensive line coach Greg Studrawa “isn’t too happy about that.”
Studrawa was almost certainly pleased with how his unit performed outside of the penalties and a few other minor miscues. Jones said the win over Oklahoma was a great experience for himself as well as the other young offensive linemen, and that it is helping him settle in a little bit at one of the most important positions on offense.
At left tackle, Jones is tasked with protecting quarterback J.T. Barrett’s blindside.
“It was nice to go in there because me, Isaiah and Mike, we’d never went on the road and had to play,” Jones said. “Getting that under our belt in an environment like that, their stadium was really loud, their fans were great, and going up a great defense like that, getting it under our belt, it’s a little bit comforting.”
If all it takes is a simple text message from his former teammate before games to get Jones playing like he did Saturday night, you can expect a few more to come his way.
But after waiting behind Decker for two years, Jones is finally getting his turn and he’s enjoying every minute of it.
“It feels good to finally be out there playing, but there are a lot of things I need to improve on,” Jones said. “Just watching film of the first couple games there is so much better that I could be doing. Just make sure I keep improving.”
