NFL draft: Lions draft Penncrest’s Jonah Jackson in third round, Jon Runyan Jr. selected by Packers in sixth
After a standout season at Ohio State as a graduate transfer, the offensive lineman was selected with the 75th overall pick. Another Big Ten lineman with local ties, Michigan's Jon Runyan, Jr., a St. Joseph's Prep graduate, was taken by Green Bay in the sixth round.
A little more than year ago, Jonah Jackson was a little-known lineman playing for a perennial losing football team at Rutgers University.
But things have changed in a big way for Jackson, a former Penncrest High star.
Following a strong season at Ohio State, where he was an All-Big Ten selection as a graduate transfer, Jackson on Friday night was selected by the Detroit Lions in the third round of the NFL draft.
“I went to Ohio State just looking for an opportunity and just to be able to showcase my abilities and talents on another platform and I felt like it definitely helped me,” Jackson said in a conference call with reporters late Friday night. “Wherever I was, I felt like coaches would have been able to find me but being able to go to Ohio State and hang the banner up in that indoor facility for the Big Ten championship and be able to get the ring. ... it was awesome.”
The Lions, who also drafted Jackson’s Ohio State teammate in cornerback Jeff Okudah in the first round, as well as Georgia running back D’Andre Swift — a St. Joseph’s Prep graduate — in the second round, traded up 10 spots to grab Jackson with the 75th overall pick.
Jackson played for the North squad at the Senior Bowl in January. The Lions’ staff coached his team.
“The experience I had at the Senior Bowl with [offensive line coach Hank] Fraley and [assistant Billy] Yates, it was second to none,” Jackson said. ”Coach Fraley, he definitely has his guys in Detroit teed up and I’m ready to get teed up with them.”
Another Big Ten lineman with local ties was drafted on Saturday as Michigan’s Jon Runyan, Jr., a St. Joseph’s Prep graduate, was selected by the Green Bay Packers in the sixth round.
Runyan, the son of the longtime Eagles’ standout lineman of the same name, was a two-time, All-Big Ten selection as a left tackle for the Wolverines. The 6-4, 306-pound Runyan is projected as a guard in the NFL.
Jackson played both guard and center in four years at Rutgers, sitting out 2015 as a red-shirt season. The Scarlet Knights never went to a Bowl Game during his time there, compiling an overall record of 11-37 as well as a 4-31 mark in Big Ten competition.
The 6-4, 306-pound Jackson played left guard at Ohio State, which went 13-1, capturing the Big Ten title and losing in the College Football Playoff semifinal in the Fiesta Bowl to Clemson.
Jackson is the first Penncrest player to be selected in the NFL draft. He was a first-team, All-Central League selection as a senior and rated as a three-star recruit by rivals.com and other scouting services.
“I am so happy and proud of Jonah,” said Rich Stroup, who was Penncrest’s head coach during Jackson’s career and now serves as an assistant at Garnet Valley High. “He has done everything he is supposed to do to put himself in this position.”