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Meet the Natural: UW Offers Multi-Talented Young NorCal Athlete

Marco Jones has many options and not all of them are limited to football.
Dan Raley|
Meet the Natural: UW Offers Multi-Talented Young NorCal Athlete
Meet the Natural: UW Offers Multi-Talented Young NorCal Athlete

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Washington Huskies

Marco Jones is a sturdy linebacker and a tight end prospect from Danville, a mid-sized northern California city that's been very good to the University of Washington football program.

This place, a half hour east of Oakland, has supplied the Huskies with quarterback Jake Haener, though he wound up taking his talents to Fresno State to flourish; place-kicker Peyton Henry, who broke the UW career scoring record this past season with 402 points; and center Corey Luciano, who started and anchored a very good offensive line that permitted just seven QB sacks in his final go-round in Montlake.

On Saturday afternoon, the aforementioned Jones was touring the UW football facilities with his father on Junior Day when he received a scholarship offer from Kalen DeBoer's staff, adding to earlier ones he picked up from Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Oklahoma and USC. 

However, the competition for the services of this exquisite 6-foot-4, 210-pound athlete might be much more involved than just him wading through just college football offers.

With a smooth, powerful swing and blended with all of that size and athleticism, Jones seemingly could become a pro baseball player who gets people all excited about his future in that sport and talked out of going to college. By the way, he also pitches. 

For now, this overly talented sophomore athlete from Danville's San Ramon Valley High School is a serious football prospect, with offers expected in big bunches over the next couple of years.

Jones comes off an astounding season in which he piled up 149 tackles, 3 pass break-ups, 3 forced fumbles, 3 fumble recoveries and 2 interceptions — returning one of the pass thefts 67 yards for a touchdown against Monte Vista High.

Remember, this guy is just a 10th-grader, a Class of 2025 prospect.

Against Amador Valley High, Jones turned in a 21-tackle effort, 16 coming solo. He had 15 tackles against Clayton Valley, 14 more against Granite Hills.

When he wasn't knocking people down, averaging 10 tackles per game, Jones lined up at tight end for a 12-3 playoff-bound San Ramon Valley team and he caught 8 passes for 71 yards and 4 scores.

All of which brought him first-team All-Bay Area honors from both West Coast Preps and the Bay Area News Group, plus first-team sophomore All-State recognition. 

If the Huskies had been proactive over the weekend, or maybe even conniving, they would have given Marco Jones only a one-way ticket to Seattle and never let him leave.

Yet the UW thanked him for visiting and bid him farewell, and Kalen DeBoer's staff likely will have to contend with a large contingent of football recruiters and baseball scouts to get him to come back to town and stay and play. 

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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