Former South Carolina football star refutes reports of trade request

South Carolina football fans don't have too many positive memories from the 2019 and 2020 seasons. The Gamecocks struggled, winning just 6 total games, but there was a great upset of the Georgia Bulldogs in 2019 and a fun win over the Auburn Tigers in 2020.

From an individual player standpoint, guys like Javon Kinlaw, Jaycee Horn, Kevin Harris, Bryan Edwards, and Shi Smith had really nice seasons. Another player who earned his way to an All-SEC team was linebacker Ernest Jones.

Jones, who was a low-rated 3-star prospect coming out of high school, elected to forego his redshirt season to help out the team on special teams in the 2018 Belk Bowl, and when he became a starter in 2019, he exploded onto the scene. Jones made the All-SEC squad in both 2019 and 2020 as he became one of the best sideline-to-sideline linebackers in recent South Carolina football history.

He played well enough with the Gamecocks to be selected in the 3rd round of the 2021 NFL Draft and has become one of the better 'backers in the league. Last season, he set the Rams' franchise record for tackles when he made 145 stops in just 15 games.

Over the weekend, though, ESPN reporter Jeremy Fowler revealed that sources told him that the Rams gave Jones permission to seek a trade if he is unhappy with his current contract situation.Jones quickly posted on Twitter/X that he "never asked for a trade" but since has deleted the post.

Jones is a top-10 linebacker in football right now, but he has been snubbed from the Pro Bowl after an elite 2023 season. He deserves a nice payday and will get it, but it remains to be seen if the Rams will be the team that opens up the checkbook for the former Gamecock.