Morgan City High School's Jaylen Jones holds signing ceremony

Morgan City High School’s Jaylen Jones has excelled in football, basketball and track during his time at Morgan City High.
As his senior year of high school winds down, he has been given the opportunity to continue two of those sports on the next level as he signed a letter of intent to play football at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri, earlier this month and held a signing ceremony prior to the Tigers’ final regular season basketball game against Vandebilt Catholic Friday.
He also will run track for the Missouri university.
Jones said, “it’s pretty exciting” having the opportunity to continue his football career, noting he will be running track too.
For the Bearcats, he will compete in the 200-meter dash.
On the football field, Jones is pegged to play defensive back and will be looked at in the return game.
“They like what they see from my junior year on defense,” Jones said.
While he saw time on defense as a junior, his defensive plays were limited as a senior because he was utilized at punter, kick off returner and on offense in the rushing and passing game by new Morgan City head coach Scott Tregle.
“So basically we spared him on defense just (to) give our offense a chance to score some points, and we scored a lot of points and a lot of it was attributed to him,” Tregle said.
Both Tregle and Jones were not concerned about him being able to make the transition to defense in college.
Jones finished his senior year with 27 rushes for 214 yards and two scores, completed 1 of 3 passes for 26 yards and a score, and caught 26 passes for 530 yards and six scores.
He had two touchdowns on punt returns and four touchdowns on kickoff returns in his senior season.
As punter he took the ball nearly the length of the field for a touchdown after a bad snap during one of the Tigers’ games this past season.
“He’s just that type of player where he can make plays when plays aren’t supposed to be made, and they’re getting a sleeper,” Tregle said. “They’re getting a guy that doesn’t even know his skill set yet, so he’s going to really help them out.”
While Jones said he had another offer from Louisiana College, Tregle said Jones could have played for a lot of state colleges but he didn’t have the stats because Morgan City struggled.
As for what drew him to Southwest Baptist, Jones said, “The coaches there respect the players. They care about the players. They keep in touch. It showed me commitment on their part.”
On the track, Jones finished his junior season as state runner-up in the 200-meter dash with a time of 21.78, a time that he didn’t run at full strength. He fell in the finals to LSU football signee Donté Jackson.
As a junior, Jones also was part of the Tigers’ 4x100 meter relay that finished second in the state in Class 4A with a time of 42.24 and the Tigers’ 4x200 meter relay that finished sixth at the state meet with a time of 1:28.32.
Heading into his senior season on the track as well as beyond to college, Jones said he is working to lower his 200-meter time to under 21 flat.
As for football preparations for next year, he said his focus will be on bulking up and increasing his speed.