‘The competition here is amazing’ … OL transfer Keiondre Jones loving Florida State spring drills

Keiondre Jones has only been at Florida State for a few months, and the Auburn transfer has only been here for eight spring practices. But the veteran offensive lineman already feels very confident he is a part of something special in Tallahassee.

“The competition here is amazing,” Jones said after Thursday’s practice. “That’s probably the biggest thing I love about being here: The competition I get to go up against day in and day out. Even when it comes to the film room, everyone here is so locked in on what we’ve got to do. You’d think (because) it’s an older group, all the hype, we’re just in spring ball. But it’s none of that.

“Everybody wants to work. Everybody knows the potential this team has got.”

Jones, who is a redshirt junior, played in 36 games and started 22 during his four years at Auburn. He’s plenty familiar with the Southeastern Conference. He grew up in it. He saw it first-hand — for almost a half-decade.

And yet he has no qualms saying what he is going up against now, every day in practice, might be even better than what he was used to going up against in that other conference.

That’s how impressed he’s been with the talent and depth on the Florida State defensive line through eight practices.

“It’s the real deal,” Jones said. “People in general always try to make it seem like it’s a big dip from the ACC to the SEC. It might be at other places, but here it’s not. The competition I see here every day is the same type of competition that I would see every day at Auburn.

“It’s a blessing to go up against those guys every day.”

He said one of the coolest aspects of the competition he’s seeing every day across the line of scrimmage — whether in 1-on-1 drills or 11-on-11 — is that afterward, his competitors/teammates will give him advice and tips on how to be better.

After all, they want to beat Jones in the moment, but they also want Jones to be as good as possible once the season begins.

“You don’t want to walk in the room and be the best person in the room all the time,” Jones said. “So, being able to come out here and compete with those guys at that level, and allow myself to make mistakes. And I can go back in the locker room and be like, ‘Hey, what did I do wrong here? What made you see that I was pulling right here?’ Those kinds of things.

“So, it’s good to be able to ask them those kinds of questions.”

Jones was asked which defensive tackles have stood out the most this spring, and he said Joshua Farmer, Darrell Jackson and Daniel Lyons. But he made sure to mention the entirety of the defensive line multiple times, and overall could not have been more complimentary of his new teammates on that side of the ball.

As for himself, and his own performance, Jones admitted he’s still got a whole lot to improve upon as he readies for the Seminoles’ second scrimmage of the spring on Saturday and continues to try to earn a starting spot on Alex Atkins’ offensive line.

“There’s little technical things I’ve got to work on,” the redshirt junior said. “Pad level, things like that. Just me personally, I have to work on. Going through the playbook at real speed, really getting to test myself: ‘Do I know this? Do I know that?’ So, the (first scrimmage) was good for me to learn what I do know, and what I’ve got to work on.

“(The coaches) are going to critique the mess out of you, which I love, which I need.”

Trench Notes

Here are some highlights from Florida State’s OL/DL pass-rushing drills at Thursday’s practice:

DE Jared Verse drove OT Jeremiah Byers way back into the backfield and then let him know about it.OG Keiondre Jones did a nice job of blocking DT Daniel Lyons.DT Ayobami Tifase had two really impressive reps, just bullying interior linemen deep into the backfield. One was Darius Washington, but couldn’t catch who the other was from my angle.DT Joshua Farmer continues to dominate most of his one-on-one reps against all comers.OT Bless Harris appeared to win his reps against DEs Dante Anderson and Patrick Payton. (Should be noted that Payton is often working on his bull-rushing moves and not trying to rely on his speed. The results might be different if he did that.) OT Daughtry Richardson did a good job against Dante Anderson.DT Antavious Woody got the best of OG Bryson Estes, but it looked like OG Kanaya Charlton won his rep against Woody.DT Darrell Jackson made easy work of OG Thomas Shrader.DL Bishop Thomas got the best of OT Lucas Simmons.

Warchant managing editor Ira Schoffel contributed to this report.

Talk about this story with other die-hard FSU football fans on the Tribal Council.

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