Patrick Jones is one of the best defensive players in all of college football. He entered Thursday’s game against Georgia Tech ranked second in the country with nine sacks and he is almost assuredly going to hear his name called early in the NFL Draft come April.

The circumstances of Pitt’s game with Georgia Tech and the college football season at large were not normal. This game was meant to be played in November, but was postponed due to COVID, thus creating a mid-December regular season finale for the Panthers. Pitt defeated the Yellow Jackets by a score of 34-20 to end the 2020 season with a 6-5 record.

College football stars all around the country and even on the Pitt team have ‘opted-out’ of the season to not risk injury and prepare for the NFL. Just at Pitt alone, Jaylen Twyman chose not to play this season. Paris Ford decided to start preparing for the NFL midseason, and in the days leading up to the Georgia Tech game fellow teammates Damar Hamlin and Rashad Weaver chose not to travel with the team to Atlanta.

That thought of not playing on Thursday never crossed Jones’ mind, however. He said he didn’t even really entertain the idea of sitting out the regular season finale and wanted to close out the year with his teammates on the field.

“No I was just kind of locked-in like to the game and everything,” Jones said after Pitt’s 34-20 win. “I just kind of wanted to be there with my boys for real.”

There was no love lost from Jones towards his teammates that made the decision to sit this game out. He simply wanted one more chance to put on a Pitt uniform before his college career came to an end.

“My teammates are great players and they gave us everything we got,” he said. “That’s their decision and they made a decision and all you can do is respect it and support them. They’ve been my brothers, I’m going to respect them no matter what they do.”

Jones made the decision to declare for the draft a little later than Hamlin and Weaver. On Friday morning he announced on Twitter that he will be forgoing Pitt's bowl game and will start to prepare and train for the NFL Draft. Hours later, the Pitt program announced it would not be going to a bowl game, meaning Jones played all scheduled 11 games for his team this season.

Jones finished Thursday with a team-high seven tackles and batted down a pass as well. He did not record a sack, but the Pitt defense recorded three, including one apiece from fellow defensive ends Deslin Alexandre and John Morgan. He was happy to see his teammates succeed, just as he has all season. The Pitt defensive line is a tight-knit unit that feeds off of one another.

“I got a great feeling about them,” Jones said about the future of the defensive line. “We work everyday. We train in the same spot, so I just saw them boys eating, so it’s just a great feeling. I feel like we’re all eating, so whether or not I get any sacks or they get sacks we just feel like we’re all eating whenever anyone makes plays.”

Jones had a decision to make well before Thursday night. After a breakout junior season, he could have tested the draft waters last season. He made the decision to come back for his senior year, and kept making that decision week after week even though his draft stock kept rising. He said he took plenty away from this season.

“I feel like I just got more experience,” Jones said of his senior year. “I was able to lock-in and grow as a player, learn more, and you can always learn more in everything you do and I feel like that was the biggest aspect for me.”

In fact, the idea of Thursday being his last collegiate game didn’t really dawn on him at first when he was talking to the media afterwards.

“I thought it was a great feeling,” Jones said of his team’s sixth win. “We got the ‘dub so that was all I was really thinking about, just winning. So that was all I could really think of, I didn’t really think about that yet.”

Jones closes out his Pitt career as one of the most decorated defensive players in recent memory. The former two-star recruit concludes his career with 21.5 sacks and 32 tackles for loss. Jones was an All-ACC pick last year and will be adding even more accolades for his showing in 2020 as well.