Austin Jones Will Return to USC for 2023 Season
USC running back Austin Jones announced Friday that he will return to the Trojans for the 2023 season.
That’s big news for the Trojans. Jones had one year of eligibility remaining but just finished his fourth year playing football at this level.
He saw action in all 12 games in 2019 as a first-year freshman at Stanford. He then played in 17 games over the 2020 and 2021 seasons before transferring this past offseason to USC.
Jones finished the 2022 season with 135 rushing attempts for 705 yards and five touchdowns. He was also a threat out of the backfield. Jones caught 25 passes for 267 yards and a touchdown.
Jones announced his intention to return with a video and a “Run it back” announcement posted to social media.
USC gets back a player who took over as the No. 1 running back for the final four games of the season after the Trojans lost Travis Dye to injury. In his first two games as a starter following Dye’s injury, Jones rushed for back-to-back 100-yard games against UCLA and Notre Dame. He finished those two contests with 274 yards and two touchdowns on the ground, plus five receptions for 73 more yards through the air.
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Jones posted three 100-yard rushing performances during the 2022 season. And what stood out as much as anything was his ability to stay motivated and engages through the middle part of the season, when Dye dominated carries.
What the Return of Jones Means to the USC Running Back Room
USC will be without Dye next year, leaving a sizeable hole. Jones showed late in the year that he’s capable of filling that.
What makes the announcement even more significant is that it comes on the same day USC landed a commitment from former South Carolina running back MarShawn Lloyd out of the transfer portal.
As with Dye and Jones last season, Lloyd and Jones in 2023 gives USC a pair of backs both capable of logging significant minutes as the starter.
