NFL scouts are pained when All-Americans bust as pros, and college coaches grow weary when five-star recruits fall short of their potential.
But woe is the private-school coach who has to evaluate eighth graders who haven’t made it through puberty.
“Like, we don’t have anything,” said former Our Lady of Good Counsel coach Andy Stefanelli, who jabs NFL and college personnel staff members when they bellyache. “We're looking at mom and dad, trying to project.”
Stefanelli readily admits Dilin Jones wasn’t the top prospect on his list when the tall but lanky running back arrived at the Crab Bowl, an eighth-grade all-star game in Maryland that used to serve as Stefanelli’s best scouting opportunity.
Jones was the son of a UPS driver, Dimitris, nicknamed Meech, who played high school ball but maxed out there. Like his dad, Dilin had asthma, which first revealed itself at 8 years old on a dusty football field. Luckily, Meech had an inhaler with him.
Stefanelli nearly overlooked Dilin Jones, just as college football writers did this spring when the mildly productive Wisconsin running back — hobbled by turf toe as a redshirt freshman — limped off to LSU to join a star-studded transfer class.
Once an afterthought, Jones came out of spring practices as the Tigers’ most buzzed-about running back. He did the exact same thing at the Crab Bowl.
First series, Stefanelli called an off-tackle run, his bread-and-butter play.
“You have to read the blocks, read the tackle, and then read the fullback’s block. You have to be patient,” Stefanelli said. “As soon as it opened, Dilin just put his foot in the ground and took off north and south and outran everybody to the end zone. That's how we train them to run. And he did it naturally as an eighth grader.
“I go, ‘Man, I gotta have that guy.’ ”
Jones has a habit of announcing himself, especially when he’s underestimated.
He wasn’t necessarily born to run. Sheer will strengthened his lungs.
“Everything you do,” Meech told his son, “you learn to finish.”
At 5 years old, Dilin tailed his father on runs around the neighborhood. An energetic son was easier for Meech to handle after a couple of laps, lasting about a mile.
By the time Dilin reached Our Lady of Good Counsel’s practice field, he didn’t just run until the whistle. He finished every carry in the end zone.
Every offseason workout, he pushed himself to the brink.
“There were times I could hear him wheezing, and I was like, 'Dude, you need to chill, sit back for a little bit,' ” said Skylar Saar, who headed up both the wrestling program and the football team’s strength and conditioning. “He refused. He kept pushing through it.”
Jones never stopped.
He loved football. So his father signed him up for two little leagues at a time, playing running back on one team and safety on the other.
He wouldn’t sub out. Once, as a 6-year-old, he passed on bathroom breaks.
“I was changing his clothes, taking his football stuff off. I asked him why his girdle was wet,” Meech said with a laugh. “He said it was sweat.”
Dilin took well to his father’s lack of babying.
From the time he was 2, Dilin was called to the car by his father with a grown-up, “Let’s go, man!”
If Dilin tried to give up with “I don’t know” as they sounded or spelled out new words, Meech replied with an insistent, “Figure it out.”
He had to figure out how to compete in the most unglamorous sport, wrestling, because Meech wanted him tough. There were times Saar had to pull a frustrated Meech aside after matches because he thought Dilin eased up in a loss.
He hadn’t. A technical flaw was always the culprit, never effort. Saar, who coached Olympic wrestling gold medalist Kyle Snyder, believes Jones could have been a Maryland state champion as a senior if an ankle injury hadn’t sidelined him for the season.
When healthy, Jones’ competitive drive was bottomless. Stefanelli would schedule Our Lady of Good Counsel’s girls soccer team for a friendly exhibition with his squad. The girls always whooped his clumsy football players.
Then Jones came out of nowhere, deftly dribbling the ball up the field, and put two in the back of the net to clinch a win.
“Dude, you play soccer, too?” Stefanelli asked.
“Yeah, coach,” Jones confirmed in his quiet, unassuming way.
His skills spoke loudly. Jones cut blitzers in half in pass protection and tossed a half-dozen tacklers on a run. He slogged forward on a rain-soaked field and scored the game’s only touchdown in a conference title win over DeMatha.
Jones’ biggest impact was on the practice field. In time, every running back at Our Lady of Good Counsel sprinted to the end zone on every rush.
“Where I'm at now, we're doing that there,” said Stefanelli, currently the associate head coach at St. John’s College High School. “It’s like, ‘Hey, guys, I got this guy, Google him, he’s at LSU. You wanna get to that level? Here's what you need to do.’ He’s still inspiring kids and he doesn’t even know it."
Stefanelli wouldn’t have considered Jones the prototype when he first met him. But he was perfect, every practice rep, every workout.
Saar had just one gripe in four years with Jones: He DoorDash-ed McDonald’s to a wrestling meet in Hagerstown. His diet wasn’t the best, but it didn’t matter because Jones burned so many calories while competing.
Even if he had to wheeze through it.
“He wasn't just gonna show up when the lights were on. He was showing up every single day,” Saar said, “because he had bigger dreams.”
It surprised no one when Jones, who built himself into a 5-foot-11, 210-pounder, went to Wisconsin and became the lead back as a redshirt freshman.
But injuries hurt Jones’ stats, and 15 losses in two seasons weighed on his soul. That combination tanked his prestige when he left the Badgers.
Recruiting services barely ranked Jones inside their top-80 transfer running backs in January. Not exactly a standout addition to an LSU running back room that returned former five-star recruit Harlem Berry and four-star Caden Durham.
But Jones emerged from ambiguity and caught Lane Kiffin’s eye in late March.
He’s done that before.
“Really good feet and body control. Really smooth runner,” Kiffin told former Tigers safety Tyrann Mathieu in May. “Everybody knows about (tight end) Trey’Dez (Green) and (linebackers) Whit Weeks and T.J. (Dottery) … but I think Dilin has got a real chance.”
Could an under-the-radar running back who burst onto the scene at the Crab Bowl all those years ago lead a revival of LSU’s run game?
Stefanelli wouldn’t bet against it.
“Down the road, they won't be surprised. They'll start expecting it,” Stefanelli said. “If he can stay healthy, it's gonna be fun to watch. Then good for LSU, because they got more than they thought they were getting. That’s even better.”