Stanford Football: Meet the 21st ranked 2019 recruiting class
By Nico Di Fede
Austin Jones, RB, Oakland, CA
Now to a local product, Austin Jones, the four-star running back prospect who attended Bishop O’ Dowd High School in nearby Oakland. Jones was offered 28 scholarships but only had one official visit, which was to Stanford.
And apparently, he liked what he saw enough so that he didn’t need to see anywhere else to commit. I say official because I noticed he did go to Oregon and UCLA, but I guess not on official visits according to the recruiting rules.
Jones is the 7th ranked running back in the nation and the #119 ranked overall recruit. He is 5-foot-10 and 196 pounds, already good size for a college or even NFL back. According to Brandon Huffman, the national recruiting director for 247 sports, Jones is a comparable player style-wise to Duke Johnson of the Cleveland Browns.
Huffman goes on to say the following about Jones.
"“Short, stocky back who carries 190 pounds well. A patient runner who waits for his holes to develop, hits then goes. Tremendous vision, sees the hole as it develops then gets to it. Great balance, doesn’t go down on initial contact. Runs with power but can also turn the corner and get up field.”"
He mentions he doesn’t have great breakaway speed which you can actually notice in his highlight tape, but he was still able to score long touchdowns due to his elusiveness. He gained 2005 yards with 24 touchdowns rushing his senior year, to go along with 378 more yards and one receiving touchdown playing against pretty decent competition.
Stanford has a knack for finding great running backs — their previous five starting running backs from 2006-2019 all being drafted in Bryce Love, Christian McCaffrey, Tyler Gaffney, Stepfan Taylor & Toby Gerhart. David Shaw runs a heavily run-first offense so Jones will have plenty of opportunity in the future to show if he can continue that trend.