Cardale Jones explains, defends his Twitter rant against NCAA

When Cardale Jones shares his opinions, they are usually strong, unfiltered thoughts.

The former Ohio State quarterback did exactly that yesterday when he unloaded an anti-NCAA rant on Twitter. Jones never mentioned satellite camps or said what specifically set him off, just that he was glad he was done with their rules and regulations that expose college athletes.

On Tuesday, Jones joined ESPN’s “Mike and Mike in the Morning” to clear up what fueled his anti-NCAA attack.

“Really the spillover was seeing the ban of satellite camps and knowing what the camps did not just for me but for my former teammates who got scholarships all around the country,” Jones said.

Jones talked about what the satellite camps did for kids in his position.

“A lot because they also gave smaller schools an opportunity to see a high-ranked player going against another high-ranked player that he’s not going to play against in a football season,” Jones said. “For instance, guys come from different cities to go to Ohio State camps because you’ve got Ohio State, you’ve got the team up North, you’ve got other small schools there.

“You’re getting so much exposure from so many different schools, which allows you to open up your recruiting bases before the season even starts.”

But Jones’ problems with the NCAA weren’t limited to its new satellite camp policy. Co-host Mike Golic brought up the subject about whether or not Jones regretted his decision to come back to Ohio State and if he enjoyed his time in college.

To that, Jones said he had no regrets. He then took aim at the NCAA again.

“The NCAA didn’t make my college experience more enjoyable,” Jones said. “The people I was around, my Ohio State family, that’s what made it so enjoyable.”

So what is it that Jones dislikes about the NCAA’s rules?

“Almost literally everything,” he said. “I don’t want to make it sound like I’m being selfish or that I’m not grateful for the scholarship opportunities that I have because the NCAA is allowing a lot of inner-city, underprivileged kids to receive a higher education. But it’s more than that, as I said in some of those tweets.

“The things that we are not allowed to do, they want to say that we’re like normal students, but a normal student can go sell their shoes and get X amount of dollars for them. We jeopardize our eligibility and our program reputation if someone lets us cut them in line and buys us a freakin’ two-dollar dinner.”

As Jones said, he longer has to worry about the NCAA. He’ll begin his NFL career and not worry about issues like making money off his likeness.

But there are still plenty of current athletes who feel the way Jones does. Unfortunately for them, he isn’t optimistic about the narrative shifting anytime soon.

“I hope a lot of changes come in the near future,” Jones said. “But the support is really not there to make a change like what Northwestern was trying to do.”