Cardale Jones is intelligent, says Urban Meyer

That's the gist of this story, and the gist of what Meyer was saying: Cardale Jones is football smart, and he'll be even better once he doesn't have to worry about staying eligible any more, academically. During the course of this interview, he noted off the cuff that Jones "wasn't necessarily very good at school," mainly as an acknowledgement of what people already know, and to contrast it with his quarterbacking brain.

Urban Meyer: Cardale Jones 'wasn't necessarily very good at school'

So did CBS Sports.com go with my subject line, or some variation, as its top stories homepage headline link? Of course not!

"Meyer says Cardale 'wasn't very good at school'"

Wow, it's really hard to understand why readers and sources don't trust the media sometimes.

 

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He could have a valid point, remains to be seen. Not sure if they have people checking to make sure the football players go to class at TOSU, but even if he was there doubt he paid attention or stayed awake. Some guys view D1 football as Triple-A for the NFL, completely shocking.

 

It's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the guy's intelligence to admit he can't balance football with whatever joke schedule of "classes" he has.

 

If Cardale is intelligent but not very good at school, the implication is that he's lazy. Might be shiftless, too.

 

Yeah that has to be it. Can't be that he saw no value in bs classes and figured he was just there to play football.

 

I'll guess we'll have a clearer picture when the NFL Combine confidential Wonderlic
scores slip out.

 

Meyer can be justifiably infuriated about that headline.

Jones not being good at school is not news, we already knew that, we've known that ever since he sent out that ill-advised tweet a few years ago. But what WAS different about this story was someone finally raving about how intelligent he is at the other stuff, that was the whole point of the comment--so how does CBS choose to characterize that point? It's such a dishonest tactic.

 

I thought this would be about Cardale Jones boycotting the Panthers over bathroom access.

 

This is not "raving":

“[Jones has a] really good skill set, intellectual, very smart, wasn't necessarily very good at school,” Meyer said.

“I wonder if that kind of set him back a little bit. That's one difference between pro and college -- now he doesn't have to worry about classes and going to school and all that stuff. He can focus completely on football.”

And, it was never that he was "dumb," he just didn't care and used the NCAA to advance just his football career, just like the NCAA uses all of its players as indentured servants under the guise of caring about "education."

 

Completely stunned, he thought he was at OSU to get ready for the NFL.

 

They've replaced the Wonderlic test this year. It was found to be racially divisive. They are going with a 100 meter freestyle swim instead.