Sitting on his living room sofa at around 5 p.m. on Thursday night, Samaj Jones decided. The gifted 6-foot-1, 215-pound St. Joseph’s Prep rising senior quarterback ended a two-year long journey and called Cincinnati’s first-year coach Scott Satterfield to tell him that he’s going to be a Bearcat.
On Sunday at 7 p.m., Jones made it public by announcing it on social media.
Jones, ESPN’s No. 5-ranked dual-threat quarterback nationally and No. 250-ranked overall player, choose Cincinnati over Oklahoma, Penn State and West Virginia. Oklahoma was the closest competitor to Cincinnati. Jones is the highest ranked recruit in Cincinnati’s 2024 class.
While at Louisville, Satterfield had heavily recruited Jones, who owns numerous St. Joe’s Prep passing records, including becoming the first Prep quarterback to throw for 400 yards and seven touchdowns in a game, which he did last season against St. Peter’s Prep, finishing with 420 yards and seven touchdowns in a 55-20 victory.
He ended the season throwing for 2,526 yards and 32 touchdown passes, rushed for 740 yards and 14 touchdowns, and amassed more than 3,200 total yards of offense, and more importantly, directed the Hawks to the PIAA Class 6A state championship last season.
“This was really stressful,” Jones said. “I felt sick the last couple of weeks thinking about this. I haven’t gotten a good night of sleep in so long, that I don’t even want to think about it. I was talking to one of our coaches earlier this week about how much this was on my mind.
“Getting this off my mind and something to get rid of, I just want to go out and win another state championship. This got to a point where I didn’t want to talk about it to anyone, except my teammates and guys like Kyle McCord (former Prep quarterback now at Ohio State), and Omillio (Agard, who committed to Wisconsin on Saturday).
“I was that stressed out. It was the pressure I put on myself. But I was getting an average of 15, 20 calls a day. I had recruiters constantly calling. It was crazy. It is tough to say no to the schools that were recruiting. They were all good. It was my decision, and there were some schools that didn’t dig it. It taught me a lot about this process.”
Cincinnati was a leader because Satterfield runs the offense Jones runs at St. Joe’s Prep, but what really made Jones choose Cincinnati was Satterfield and his staff.
“Cincinnati made me feel really comfortable, and I spoke to Robert Jackson (who’s at Cincinnati and played for Archbishop Wood),” Jones said. “Robert told me after (previous Cincinnati) coach (Luke) Fickell left (for Wisconsin), how the new staff came in there and made everyone feel just as comfortable as the previous staff.
“That was something that really stuck out to me. Plus, Satterfield runs an explosive offense that’s made for a dual-threat quarterback like me. Cincinnati is entering the Big 12 this year, so now they’re a Power Five school. Coach Satterfield has coached a lot of good quarterbacks, and seeing the work he did with Malik Cunningham (when he was at Louisville and now the New England Patriots) was a big deal to me.”
Going into Cincinnati, Jones will be more prepared than when Cunningham started at Louisville. Satterfield also coached Taylor Lamb, when he was at Appalachian State and is the quarterback coach at Virginia.
Satterfield holds a 76-48 record (.612) in 10 years as head coach at Louisville and Appalachian State, holding a winning mark in seven seasons in addition to a 4-1 record in bowl games. He led the Mountaineers to three straight conference titles and four bowl appearances from 2013 to 2018 before taking over the Cardinals in 2019.
Along with Cincinnati this season, the Big 12 will be welcoming BYU, Houston, and UCF. It will also mark the last season for founding conference members Oklahoma and Texas, which will be leaving for the Southeastern Conference prior to the start of the 2024 season.
This is going to be another big year for St. Joe’s Prep. The Hawks, with a good nucleus back from last year’s state championship, may have larger aspirations than winning another PIAA Class 6A state championship. This is a team that is good enough to win a mythical high school national championship.
“Being at Prep has been a great help, and I resorted to Kyle, who’s been through this process and he’s one of the brightest people that I know,” Jones said. “I made the decision based on what my gut told me. Football is big in Cincinnati, and with how good the Bengals are right now, that’s a big plus, too.
“They have their own stadium and it is shaped like a bowl. The program has been great under Fickell and Satterfield has been recruiting me since he was at Louisville. I want to compete for the starting job from Day One, and I know it’s going to take a lot for me to get what I want. I’m a competitor. It’s part of who I am.”
Jones, who plans on majoring in exercise science, said that the NIL compensation is good at Cincinnati, but “I don’t really care about that,” he stressed. “I get to enjoy my senior year of high school. I’m going to a great school and a great program, and I get to have a great senior year. This is over. The NIL didn’t play much in this at all. I would play football for free.
“I would pay to play football.”
Jones will sign during the early signing period in December.
Photo courtesy of Matt Topper
Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter who has been covering high school football since 1992 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter @JSantoliquito. Follow EasternPAFootball.com on Twitter @EPAFootball.
