COLUMBUS, Ohio -- How sudden was Cardale Jones' rise from immature, third-string quarterback to leading Ohio State into the national championship game with a rocket arm and ambitious running skills? Right up until the time starter J.T. Barrett got hurt against Michigan on Nov. 29, Jones still was displaying immaturity to coaches.

Allow safety Tyvis Powell, Jones’ roommate and closest friend on the team, to explain. According to Powell, Jones did not do something academically he was supposed to the week of the Michigan game and Buckeyes coaches threatened to take away his tickets.

Said Powell: "Cardale was like, ‘I don’t care, I’m not playing anyway, so I don’t care what you do. I think they forgot, Tyvis, that I don’t play.' So I’m like, OK, and the funny thing about it is he ended up playing.”

That's the day Powell says he noticed Jones change into a more focused quarterback who spends more time studying film. Jones didn't win the starting job over incumbent Braxton Miller, or over Barrett once Miller got hurt in the preseason. There was no choice in late November with Ohio State's season hanging in the balance.

"Once Braxton went down in the summer camp, J.T. and he was battling and J.T. just had some better days and Cardale just felt like the coaches forgot about him,” Powell said. “J.T. went on and had the season he had and [Jones] was like, ‘What about me?' "

What about Jones now? As his life continues to evolve, all Jones has done in two career starts is beat Wisconsin for the Big Ten championship and knock off No. 1 Alabama in the College Football Playoff semifinals.

"I pinch myself a lot because I'm not waking up," Jones said in the locker room at the Superdome after the victory over Alabama. "It's like pinch, punch, punch, pinch, pinch. I don't know what's going to wake me up."

Jones, described by many teammates as a goofball, made that remark in a sarcastic, playful tone. The truth is he’s very confident about his abilities.

He's the quarterback who put on Twitter a picture of himself stiff-arming a Crimson Tide defender with the caption "3rd string" and a smiley face. He's the quarterback who on Tuesday tweeted a picture of himself with a photoshopped gun on his throwing arm under the caption "Going Duck Hunting With Our 12 Gauge."

"Honestly, I saw myself being in this position when J.T. went down," Jones said. "There was never a lack of confidence in myself, never a lack of confidence my teammates had in me. When I stepped into the role as a starter, I saw us still winning the national championship."

Very few people in the outside world did. Who goes from third on the depth chart at the game's most important position to winning two elimination games to get the chance to capture the national title?

Championship QBs in first two starts
Cardale Jones has made a strong debut in his first two career starts, especially considering he played Wisconsin and Alabama in make-or-break games for his team. Here's how quarterbacks who played in the national championship game over the past decade fared in their first two college starts.
Quarterback, School Opponents Pct. Pass
Yds		 TD INT Rush
Yds		 TD
Cardale Jones, Ohio State Wisconsin, Alabama 57.7 500 4 1 52 0
Marcus Mariota, Oregon Arkansas State, Fresno State 75.5 366 4 0 91 0
Jameis Winston, FSU Pittsburgh, Nevada 88.9 570 6 1 33 2
Nick Marshall, Auburn Wash. State, Arkansas State 55.6 246 2 0 80 0
AJ McCarron, Alabama Kent State, Penn State 61.1 389 2 2 4 0
Everett Golson, Notre Dame Navy, Purdue 67.3 433 2 1 -18 1
Jordan Jefferson, LSU Arkansas, Ga. Tech 54.3 285 3 0 75 0
Cam Newton, Auburn Arkansas State, Miss. State 60.6 322 5 1 241 2
Darron Thomas, Oregon New Mexico, Tennessee 54.5 422 4 1 34 0
Greg McElroy, Alabama Va. Tech, FIU 61.1 471 2 1 14 0
Colt McCoy, Texas North Texas, Ohio State 60.8 332 4 1 46 1
Tim Tebow, Florida W. Kentucky, Troy 73.8 536 6 0 131 3
Sam Bradford, Oklahoma North Texas, Miami 83.3 568 8 0 5 0
Matt Flynn, LSU Miami, Miss. State 61.0 324 4 0 81 0
Todd Boeckman, Ohio State Youngstown State, Akron 67.4 356 4 2 -20 0
Chris Leak, Florida Kentucky, Ole Miss 54.8 502 4 5 -12 0
Troy Smith, Ohio State Iowa, Indiana 55.6 237 3 0 65 0
Vince Young, Texas Iowa State, Baylor 64.3 201 1 1 159 2
Matt Leinart, USC Auburn, BYU 56.3 427 4 3 -5 0

The closest comparison to Jones is Marcus Outzen, who started Florida State’s final three games of the 1998 season as the Seminoles reached the first BCS championship game. Outzen was the third-string quarterback until heir apparent Dan Kendra blew out his knee in spring practice before the 1998 season, and then Chris Weinke suffered a neck injury late in the season.

But Jones is asked to do far more throwing than Outzen did in his relief role. Outzen was a game manager and threw one touchdown in his three starts, including a 1999 Fiesta Bowl loss to Tennessee with the national title at stake.

Ohio State coach Urban Meyer, whose Buckeyes face Oregon in the CFP National Championship on Monday in Arlington, Texas, can't recall a situation similar to Jones in college football history.

"[Offensive coordinator] Tom Herman and I were talking about it the other day, and we kind of had a quick run down history lane here ... and I'm not sure we have," Meyer said. "And there’s not many people in here that really know how far he’s come."

Jones tries to gain maturity

In the locker room at the Superdome, a reporter noticed a wristband Jones wore that reads "E+R=O." It stands for "Event Plus Response Equals Outcome." The saying came from a leadership workshop led by Tim Kight, Ohio State's leadership development consultant.

"I haven't took it off since I got this, probably in early June," Jones said. "It means a lot to me, because every time I had a rough time, not just in the game of football -- but classroom or life, I just remember a response is going to affect the outcome. It changed me a lot."

Jones grew up in the Glenville section of Cleveland without knowing his father. He's the youngest of six children with a single mother.

In high school at Ginn Academy, Jones was the kid who would get thrown out of class and leave with both middle fingers raised over his head. He was the kid who lived in an area filled with drugs, temptations and risks.

"He could have been a statistic," said Meyer, who credits mentors such as Michelle Nash for helping Jones. "There could have been a big asterisk next to his name; 'Whatever happened to so and so because he was given the wrong information and given the wrong guidance.' "

Ted Ginn Sr., the founder of Ginn Academy, doesn’t like the label "at-risk kids," because he views kids not reaching their potential as the biggest risk. In the case of Jones, Ginn saw a kid looking to survive.

"He didn't know what was happening day to day, different people in his life and just struggling," Ginn said. "He was a very intelligent kid and had a lot of pride about himself and didn't like introducing himself to people. The struggles of him trying to define himself in the world was probably what he struggled with the most."

Out of high school, Jones had offers from LSU, Iowa and Michigan. But Jones wanted to play at Ohio State and he voluntarily spent a semester at Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia to work on his behavior and to create separation with Miller, who committed to Ohio State to play quarterback in the same recruiting class.

"My maturity level was not where it needed to be coming into college," Jones said.

Before Jones emerged at the Big Ten Championship Game, he was most known for what he wrote on Twitter in 2012 in the screen grab below:

Powell, his roommate and best friend, remembers wondering why in the world Jones would put those thoughts out there for everyone to see.

"I was like, yeah, Cardale, that was stupid," Powell said. "I still tell him that to this day. The world won't let it go. Cardale will be like 50 years old and they'll come back and still talk about that: 'Hey, that's the guy that had that tweet.' He got a little famous off it, though."

Powell has another story he says sums up how "obnoxious" his good friend can be. Around Christmas time last year, Powell said he was with Jones and a couple teammates at Nordstrom’s when they wanted to look at something in a glass case but no employee was coming to help.

"So Cardale goes, 'Is anybody gonna come?' Pulls his wallet out and takes like two hundred dollars out and starts throwing the money and saying, 'Is anybody gonna come?' " Powell said, doubling over in laughter. "People eventually start coming. It was the funniest thing in the world. Cardale's off the hook, I’m trying to tell you. He calmed himself down."

Jones often blew off classes. He feuded for a while with Herman, who once had Jones wear a dunce cap in a quarterbacks meeting. At one point, Herman even drew up a contract for Jones to sign, warning him that he would be kicked off the team if he kept missing classes and didn't reach a certain grade-point average.

"Me and him have had our ups and downs," Herman said. "It was down for a long time, and now it's trending up and really up to the point we're very, very close. He started growing up and acting like a man and taking care of his business -- acting like a real dude. Guess what? When you act like a real dude, I'm usually not on your ass a whole lot."

Ohio State offenses evolves with Jones' arm

Coaches always tell reserves to be ready. Anything can happen. But in reality, those are "little pep talks like that, you just brush off when you’re not the guy and it never seems like you play," Jones said.

A funny thing happened to Ohio State’s offense when the 6-foot-5, 250-pound Jones became quarterback: The vertical game transformed for the Buckeyes' speedy receivers. Alabama coach Nick Saban noted the difference after the Sugar Bowl.

Meyer insists Ohio State isn't throwing deep more because of the quarterback change, but because of how defenses are playing the Buckeyes. Still, Meyer acknowledges Jones is the first quarterback he has had since Alex Smith a decade ago at Utah “that can high-low a pass over the top of a defensive line, and that's rare. That's hard to find those guys."

Against Wisconsin, Jones completed 12 of 17 passes for 257 yards and three touchdowns and was named MVP of the Big Ten Championship Game. He followed that against Alabama with 243 passing yards, one touchdown, one interception and 43 rushing yards, including a scramble when he lowered his shoulder against an Alabama defender.

"I never slide, because they say I'm too big to slide," Jones said, agreeing with a media member that he runs more like a monster truck than a Ferrari.

For the sixth straight year, college football's national championship game has a first-year starter at quarterback. Ten of the past 16 quarterbacks to play for the national title were first-year starters, and five of the past seven to win the championship were in their debut season starting. But none in recent years have entered the title game with such little playing experience.

Ohio State’s quarterback situation will be arguably the most fascinating story heading into next season. Miller, last year’s Big Ten offensive player of the year and a preseason Heisman Trophy candidate, has one year of eligibility left. Barrett, a possible Heisman candidate until his season-ending injury, has three years left. Jones, who could be the only one among the three with a national title, has two years remaining.

Miller graduated and could transfer to another school, where he could immediately. However, Meyer said last week he spoke with Miller and expects him to return.

Jones said none of the three quarterbacks are thinking about leaving Ohio State because of the bond they've built at the school and with teammates. "You don't want to just up and leave something like that and start something with new guys and a new university," he said.

On the other hand, there's only one position for three starting quarterbacks. Doesn't Jones want to play? "Definitely," he said last week. "But I can't see it. But I guess anything is possible. I don't know."

Technically, Jones is eligible to declare for the NFL Draft. "I definitely will be back," he said Tuesday. "I don't think about things like that right now at this point. This game is more important than me turning pro, anybody turning pro."

Herman cautions that Jones hasn’t made it yet and must consistently prove himself on a big stage.

Jones: 'When I stepped into the role as a starter, I saw us still winning the national championship.' (USATSI)
Jones: 'When I stepped into the role as a starter, I saw us still winning the national championship.' (USATSI)

"We've got him on magazine covers and shirts in the bookstores -- whoa," Herman said. "We make these kids out to be bigger than life and we expect them to handle situations the way I would handle it, or you would handle it, or Urban Meyer would handle it."

Jones became a father on Nov. 7, when his girlfriend gave birth to their daughter, Chloe. "I was already still in that growing-up process and I still am, just knowing all of my decisions will now affect her as well," Jones said.

This week Jones learned his uncle, Audie Murphy, will soon die of liver cancer. Jones knew his uncle had cancer, but not that the end was this soon. The news adds to the emotion of this week with a national championship at stake.

For several months, Herman has tried to help Jones compartmentalize his life -- the pending baby, the ups and downs of academics, and being a good teammate who's ready to play.

"It's basically the same situation, but a little tougher," Jones said of his uncle's illness. "Some of my teammates, unless they saw that tweet, they wouldn't know. I'm completely different when I'm out here. That's how I am."

Jones' unlikely journey resumes next Monday on the biggest stage. One of the most fascinating stories in recent college football history will play out to its conclusion one way or the other for the third-string quarterback no more.

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