Victor Jones could return to Cowboy football team in 2021

LARAMIE -- Wyoming defensive end Victor Jones could find himself in good graces with his head coach again after all.

Craig Bohl suspended the junior indefinitely back on Nov. 25 for a violation of team rules. Jones, a Sacramento, Calif., native, played in the first three games for the Cowboys in 2020, tallying 13 tackles and 1.5 sacks.

"I will amend I said 'indefinitely,'" Bohl said Wednesday during his signing day press conference. "I can tell you this, we'll see where Victor is at. I'm not going to get into all the specifics, but we're going to see where Victor is at, at the end of this semester. If things go, hopefully how they can go, he will be allowed to come back and allowed to return to activities during the course of the summer."

Bohl said Jones is still a student at UW.

In 2019, Jones bounced between the defensive tackle and end spot, playing in 10 games for the Cowboys. He finished with 20 tackles and 1.5 sack that season in a reserve role behind players like Solomon Byrd, Josiah Hall, Garrett Crall and Cole Godbout.

Jones, who stands at 6-foot-4 and weighs in at 245 pounds, was a valuable asset last fall with the opt outs of tackles Claude Cole and Mario Mora, along with Byrd and Davon Wells-Ross, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bohl said Wednesday that all players who opted out of the 2020 campaign are planning to return this fall. So is Ravontae Holt, who was lost for the season with an ACL tear in Week 2.

Jones could be a major addition to that rotation, too.

"If he's able to check off those boxes, that will allow him to rejoin the team in the fall," Bohl said of Jones. "... There's been other times that we've suspended players, but in this case, we've given him an opportunity to do some things well during the course of this spring.

"... We're going to monitor how he's doing academically and then we'll go from there."