By Billy Watkins
It was a Thursday night when Andrew Jones, in his mid-teens, approached his mother with a request.
“We need to go to Walmart,” he said.
“Andrew, I’m not going to Walmart tonight,” said Hope Collins, a pre-K teacher in New Orleans. “I’m tired.”
“But we really need to,” Andrew said.
“What’s so important that you can’t wait until this weekend?” she asked.
“Mama, there is this kid at school who has no money, no food. He goes hungry every day,” Jones told her. “I want to get him some food that he can put in the microwave and eat right then. And if we don’t go tonight, he’ll be hungry all weekend.”
They went to Walmart. Jones kept the food safely stored during school the next day. Afterward, he gave the food to his friend out of sight of all others.
“That’s Andrew,” Collins said. “If we saw a turtle crossing the road, I’d have to stop the car and he would get out and place him out of the street. He’s always had a good heart. Always.”
Three weeks ago at Georgia, most Ole Miss fans first noticed the 6-foot-1, 230-pound senior transfer linebacker from Grambling State when he made four tackles late in the game.
Jones made his formal introduction late in the first quarter against South Carolina last Saturday night at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
The Gamecocks led 7-3 and decided to go for it on fourth-and-one at the Rebels’ 46. It was a handoff around left end. Before the running back had a chance to cut north, Jones took a perfect angle and snatched him to the ground for a three-yard loss. Head coach Lane Kiffin threw his arms in the air mid-play, realizing what number 44 was about to do.
Ole Miss scored in two plays to take a 10-7 lead in a crucial game it would win 30-14. The Rebels improved to 8-1 and earned a No. 6 ranking this week in the first College Football Playoff poll of the season.
It’s worth noting that Jones also made the tackle on the two previous plays. Defensive coordinator Pete Golding is trusting him more and more, and Jones is proving worthy of his increased playing time.
Kiffin talked about Jones during his postgame press conference: “I like (Jones’) story a lot. When guys come here and things don’t go the way that they want early and they’re not playing as much .. .you got really two choices at that point. And this happens a lot in life. You know, you can sit there and complain, you can pout. You’re not going to get rewarded, and you’re going to play less. Or you can work really hard in practice . . . and he did that. Really cool, what he’s been doing.”
*********
During an interview this week, I asked Jones what kept him motivated when he wasn’t playing much.
“A quote from my mom,” he said. “She told me ‘It doesn’t take God long to turn things around.’ Me worrying about things was a sin. I just needed to keep coming to work every day and give a hundred percent.”
“Oh, I remember saying that to him,” Collins said. “He had called and was frustrated, wanting to play more. I gave him that quote, but I also explained that things work in God’s timing and he couldn’t be unprepared when God presented him with his opportunity.”
So he kept the faith and kept plugging.
Jones, 22, arrived in Oxford last January with an impressive body of work. As a junior at Grambling, an FCS school, he was named the SWAC co-Defensive Player of the Year. He made 122 tackles — nearly half of them solo — and his 20.5 tackles for loss ranked fourth nationally.
Out of John Ehret High School in Marrero, La., Jones was rated a four-star prospect and the 13th-best inside linebacker in the recruiting class of 2021.
COVID wrecked his recruiting. He visited just one school, Florida State, while holding offers from several other D-1 schools.
“They would say, ‘We love your tape but without meeting you in person it’s hard to make a scholarship offer,” Jones recalled.
He signed with Memphis but saw limited playing time after redshirting his freshman year.
He doesn’t blame Memphis’ coaches for anything. “No, I had to mature and become a better person,” he said.
Said Collins: “When he talks about maturing, he’s not just talking about as a young man or a player, He’s talking about spiritually. See, this whole journey he’s been on has been his increased walk with God — one that he has developed on his own.
“I’ve been through some dark days in my life and God was all I had to hang on to. I have three other sons and I knew the most important thing I would ever teach them was to walk through life with God.”
Don’t misjudge Collins. She’s not all quotes and hugs. She dishes out tough love when it’s needed.
“He was a really good player in other sports. I thought he might stick with baseball,” Collins says. “But when he was a little kid, he saw a football game on TV and said, ‘I wanna play that.’
“I had a mini-van so I would take him and several other boys to all their games. Then when he got to high school and decided he really wanted to focus on football and to one day play in college and the NFL, I told him he’d have to earn it.
“He’ll tell you. If he would complain about this or that, I’d say ‘If this is what you want, put your complaining in your pocket and sit on it. You have to take care of business before you start dealing with feelings. And if your body is aching, we’ve got Tylenol for that.’ ”
Collins is still preaching tough love.
“If I see something a player does crazy on TV, I’ll call him,” she said. “I tell him, ‘Don’t you ever do that and embarrass yourself and me.’ I’m only 5-foot-3, but I’ll get on a chair if I have to.”
**********
With nothing left to prove at the FCS level, he decided to transfer. Jones chose Ole Miss for two main reasons: The family would have only a 5 1/2 hour drive to Oxford for his games. Plus, Jones knew of Golding, who recruited one of Jones’ high school teammates.
“I’d heard nothing but good things about him, and I’ve found them all to be true,” Jones said. “Coach Golding doesn’t look at things as all business. He realizes that you’re a person, too, not just a player. He treats you like family, and family is first.”
Ole Miss, he said, is not like other teams he has played on.
“We have guys from all sorts of different places, but we all get along,” he said. “You’ll see kickers hanging out with defensive linemen, linebackers with offensive linemen . . . I’m blessed that the coaches gave me a chance to play here.”
When he talked this week about the final three games of the regular season and the dreams of making the playoffs, he deflected any pressure by preaching “concentrate on going 1-0 each week” and “take advantage of every day to get better.”
As he spoke, his voice increased in volume, his words became more intense.
***********
Jones was only a toddler when the effects of Hurricane Katrina destroyed his family home and those of several of his relatives.
“We lost everything,” Colins said. “I did manage to find two plastic bins that contained a whole bunch of Disney videos and a lot of photographs. We had to start all over.”
For two months, Collins and her immediate family members were among 27 relatives living in a two-bedroom home. “And it was a small two-bedroom house,” she said. “Thank goodness there were a lot of people helping with food and things.”
But some good came from the disaster. She met her husband “and that would have never happened without the storm.” She added: “Andrew has benefitted from having two men in his life — his dad and my husband,” Collins said.
His dad, Darryl Jones Sr., is a professional photographer and has taught Andrew the ins and outs of photography and videography.
“That’s Andrew’s hobby and he’s quite good at it,” Collins said.
Other good came from the tragedy. All the mental anguish and seeing things improve a little each day made her a better mom, a better person. It taught her some of the lessons she passed on to her children.
“Andrew has made me a better person, too,” she said. “I might be complaining about something, and he’ll say, ‘Mom, calm down. And all that stuff making you complain, put it in your pocket and sit on it.’ ”
Collins laughed. “I love it when he throws those sayings right back at me.”
###############
