That strong bond and mutual respect between Jones and Allen, where either person can voice themselves to the other, no questions asked, wasn't forged overnight, though. He's been raised right." Bloomington, Indiana, USA Indiana Hoosiers linebacker Cam Jones (4) motions the number 1 after stopping a run during the first quarter against the Cincinnati Bearcats at Memorial Stadium. Just a sharp young man in the way he processes things, the way he cares about his teammates, cares about our program. That doesn't happen very often at any place," Allen said.
"With Cam, he's going to be a three-time captain and that's pretty special. But for Jones, he needed assurance that his head coach was on the same page as him and ready to tackle those problems together. But I need more from you.' And he's given me more than he's ever given me since I've been here because I asked that of him."įor a majority of players, making such demands to a head coach would be unfathomable. I'm going to stay with you, I want to work with you. "I was like, 'Coach, I had the opportunity to leave this past year. "I actually challenged Coach Allen myself," Jones said. Now, it was time to address and diagnose Indiana's problems head-on, beginning with what Jones personally needed from Allen. He owed it to himself, to his teammates and to the program. By then, he had already decided that he was returning for a fifth season.
However, leaving Indiana was never on Jones' mind when he walked into Allen's office last winter and sat down to talk. He had done his four years in college, earned his bachelor's degree, and set himself up for legitimate NFL opportunities. He didn't have to put up with seemingly another program overhaul. Jones, Indiana's third-leading tackler last season, didn't have to stay in Bloomington. "And during that conversation, we just talked about what we wanted to see change and how we wanted to see it changed." "We knew there was gonna be an uncomfortable conversation, but a conversation that we needed to have," Jones said. So Jones went straight to the top, to the one man who he could fully confide in and know that his words wouldn't fall by the wayside. He couldn't cage his unfound belief any longer, and if Indiana was going to pick itself up in 2022 and prove a whole host of new doubters wrong, changes needed to happen. In the aftermath, as the Hoosiers clawed their way out of the rubble, Jones had an epiphany of sorts. I continued to believe when nobody believed in us."īut that hope soon slapped Jones in the face as Indiana plummeted deeper and deeper into the abyss, eventually meeting its rock-bottom with a 2-10 overall record. "Being a leader of the team and the defense, I didn't want that to be the case, so I probably saw later than everybody else," Jones said Tuesday at Big Ten Media days.
Thus, he didn't want to acknowledge the realities of a spiraling eight-game losing streak as it happened. Who could fault him, though? Up until 2021, all Jones ever knew as a member of the Hoosiers was a program on the rise, a head coach receiving national acclaim, and a spotlight that shined brighter on Indiana than at any point in the past three decades. By the end of the season, the inkling of hope that Indiana's All-Big Ten linebacker clung to had shriveled up into nothing more than a dormant pipe-dream. Ultimately, he just wanted to prove the doubters wrong.īut as the losses continued to pile up and Indiana's disastrous 2021 season went from bad to worse to unthinkable, the only person Jones was proving wrong was himself. Cam Jones admits he was in-denial, that if he just continued to believe in the Hoosiers, then their early-season struggles would somehow vanish.