Get to know the four-year roommates from Northeast Ohio through a July afternoon of playing video games.
Watch video
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The starting quarterback is down and Cardale Jones is screaming.
"Nooooooo."
The sound rattles off the walls of the apartment four miles from the Woody Hayes Athletic Center on a July afternoon.
"The light is bright, the light is bright," says Tyvis Powell, growing confident in a tight video game of Madden NFL 15 as Peyton Manning is replaced.
"Come on, say he's out for the game," says Powell.
Jones: "I'm still going to win."
Because if anyone is going to win a football game with a backup quarterback ... right?
Jones: "It's not like the odds weren't stacked against us before, cuz."
.....
On Jan. 13, 2015, Cardale Jones and Tyvis Powell shared the stage the day after Ohio State's College Football Playoff National Championship as the most famous roommates in college football, victors from Northeast Ohio who were chosen to wake up just hours after a confetti shower to join Urban Meyer for a morning news conference.
"To go from sitting on the couch at home to sitting on the big stage at a press conference, it's unbelievable," Powell said then of their move to the spotlight together.
Six months later, we're on that couch. Actually, Powell is on the black leather couch, with Jones in the matching black leather easy chair.
"It's my chair, too," Powell grouches, smiling.
In this clean but sparse two-bedroom, two-bathroom, 1,053-square foot apartment, the fourth-year safety from Bedford High School and fourth-year quarterback from Glenville High School share everything. The PlayStation 4 belongs to Jones, the Xbox to Powell. The couch, chair, coffee table, two small end tables holding the game consoles and speakers, and the 55-inch TV, those are shared.
* Jones, Powell offer tour of their apartment
They didn't know each other in high school, other than Powell claiming to have picked off Jones in a seven-on-seven scrimmage. In separate dorm rooms when they arrived in January 2012 as early enrollees, they've lived together since the summer before their freshman seasons, recounting together their four moves that brought them here, where they've been for a year.
Urban Meyer (center), Cardale Jones (left) and Tyvis Powell with the National Championship trophy the morning their win over Oregon in Dallas.Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer
Sunday, they moved into the team hotel where they'll have different roommates as the Buckeyes start preseason camp Monday. But for the season, they'll be back like this, Jones the quarterback who led Ohio State's postseason run and Jones entering his third season as a starting safety, after surprising many by claiming a job as a redshirt freshman in 2012.
"We didn't have anybody else," Jones says.
Four years together, and they aren't sick of each other yet.
"He's my son," Jones says.
"Don't believe that," Powell says, "everyone knows who's the father, who's the son."
But expect this to be the last year, with Jones almost certainly headed to the NFL after this season.
"I figure he's going to miss me," Powell says. "It'll be an emotional day. He's gonna cry. You're gonna miss me because you know I keep you safe."
"You're a (dang) fool," says Jones.
During the season they don't get as much time like this, their days filled with class and practice and film study, though Jones can often squeeze in a little game time. When Powell swings open the apartment on this summer day, a wall of sound bursts through the doorway, the rat-a-tat of gunfire from Jones' "Call of Duty" game. The suggestion is made that maybe when his football career is over, Jones can make his living as an e-gamer playing video games.
"When I'm done with e-gaming," Jones says, his eyes locked on the screen, "I'll be a football player."
Four years of this ... relationship, a barrage of one-liners, taunts, jokes and elaborate and conflicting claims of parentage.
"When it's your child, you have to bond with your child," Powell explains over the roar of pixelated arms fire. "I have to explain why I wasn't in his life when he was a kid. We're trying to pick up when we left off.
"I don't know why I mesh with 12."
"Ooooo, ooooo," Jones shouts at the screen. "You see that? You see that head shot? Right in his noggin."
.....
This is not the video game for which Jones is known. Since a 98-35 win over a 16-year-old in a hospital, a story which says far more about Jones' ability to relate to fans than it does his prowess with his thumbs, video game football has been his calling card.
He estimates he has lost maybe 12 or 13 times vs. his hundreds of football victories. On request, the game is changed, and Madden, the NFL version of the football game, fills the screen.
Tyvis Powell (closest to camera) and Cardale Jones playing video games in their apartment in July.Doug Lesmerises, Cleveland.com
Jones, popping Sour Patch Kids and drinking Pepsi, picks the Denver Broncos. Powell, eating Reese's Pieces with Powerade, chooses the Green Bay Packers. This compels Powell to tell a story.
"Ask Cardale about his last high school game, what he did," Powell says cackling. "We reminisce all the time. I think that was the most interceptions he threw in his life."
As he speaks, Powell picks off Jones in the game and returns it for a touchdown.
"And he watches me go for six," Powell shouts. "I knew why I picked Green Bay. That's St. Ed colors."
Nov. 13, 2010, Glenville vs. St. Edward in a Division I regional semifinal playoff before 10,000 fans. Jones was intercepted four times in a 42-22 loss, his high school farewell.
"It is what it is," Powell says. "You know what Cardale's problem is? He can't finish."
After the first quarter, Powell leads 19-7.
.....
Jones occupies the master bedroom, the one with the bathroom attached. The room setup was decided not by a video game, but in a one-on-one basketball showdown.
"We played ball, best two out of three games. I won the series, but he tried to make an excuse -'My wrist wasn't 100 percent,''' Jones says.
"We played one game," says Powell.
"Whatever," Jones says, "we played, I won. But he said that shouldn't count, 'my wrist was hurting,' so then we played another series and my ankle was messed up and my elbow. He won that series."
"My wrist was broken," Powell says.
"Now we're both 100 percent," Jones says.
"I'm not even 100 percent now," Powell says.
"We were both eligible to play ball. And I whupped him," Jones says.
"Like 12-1," Powell laughs. "But he's got to pay more rent. I don't care. He can have it."
Not that they have time for much basketball lately.
"Say you play a pickup game, what position do you think he would play?" Powell asks.
At 250 pounds, Jones looks like a power forward.
"He wouldn't be in the paint not one time," Powell says. "He sets up at the 3-point line and he's like J.R. Smith. He shoots it as soon as he touches it."
"It's so easy for me to score, I don't need to go in the paint," Jones says. "I say, 'I ain't goin' to the hole, and I ain't checking nobody.'"
.....
Powell calls Jones "12" for his jersey number. Jones, at least during game play, refers to Powell, mostly in shouts, as "sucker boy."
J.T. Barrett, Jones' competition for the starting quarterback job, was over a few days earlier and beat Jones on the screen. Powell is milking that.
"I told you I was feeling good. J.T. softened you up. ... Wait till I see J.T., I'll be like, 'We got him, J.T., we got him.' After I win I'm going to thank Joe Barrett."
Ohio State's Cardale Jones takes a question from Tyvis Powell during media day prior to the College Football Playoff National Championship against Oregon. Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer
Another interception has Powell taunting Jones with "St. Ed flashbacks." Do they wish that EA Sports, which halted production because of lawsuits over the likenesses and rights of athletes like Jones and Powell, was still making a college football game?
"Yeah, I want to see my rating," Jones says.
"100 on the throwing," Powell says. "78 on the accuracy."
They trade interceptions.
"That gold and green done messed you up," says Powell.
With the ball and 32 seconds left in the first half, Powell is asked if he's going to take a knee.
"I didn't even take a knee in the Sugar Bowl," Powell says, remembering his interception against Alabama on a desperation heave to the endzone on the final play, which he returned, for some reason, to the 28-yardline. "Why would I take one now?"
.....
Powell at one point early in the afternoon heads to the kitchen. He's replacing the bag in the garbage can.
Jones claims he took out the trash the last six times. Powell says he's lying.
"When he does take the trash out, he doesn't put the garbage bag in there, and it (ticks) me off to no end," Powell says. "You go to throw something away and there's no bag. That's so ignorant. It takes two seconds to put it in."
Jones does make taco salad.
"That's the only meal that gets made," Powell says, complaining about Jones' lack of seasoning on the meat.
"That's my son, man," Jones says.
And they steal each other's food. Powell explains his initial guilt when he sees Jones' food sitting out or in the fridge. But it doesn't last.
"I'll think, "I ain't going to do it.' Then I think, 'He'd do it to me.'"
.....
Jones has overcome Manning's injury, which lasted just two plays, and five interceptions to take the lead. Powell regrets turning down a field goal attempt for a failed pass to the endzone to finish the half. Powell is also angry over some dropped passes, and now Manning is running in for a Jones score.
Ohio State quarterback Cardale Jones (left) hugs safety Tyvis Powell as they walk off the field after media day for the Sugar Bowl on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014.AP
"Peyton looking like Vick now," Jones gloats. "Michael Manning. Mike Manning in the building, baby."
In the end, Jones takes a 48-27 lead, which in their rules ends the game. Get up three touchdowns, and it's over. Powell attempts to play for dignity in the final minutes but eventually turns off the game with six seconds left.
"Don't quit, don't quit," Jones begs. "He quit, he quit! I made him turn the system off. No mas."
"I wanted you to win to give you some hope in your life," Powell says.
"Hope for what?" asks Jones. "I'm the best."
.....
There is work ahead. Much work. Each player has his locker nameplate from the National Championship over his bedroom door. The only decoration in the living room is a Buckeye necklace absent-mindedly hanging by the hallway.
Jones, however, does feature blown up versions of his ESPN The Magazine and Sports Illustrated covers on his bedroom walls. But sitting in the living room, there isn't an overwhelming sense of Ohio State, that these two ended last season on top of the college football world, and Monday will start down the path to attempt to do it again.
There is a sense that these two, somehow, belong together.
"He's my son," Jones says.
"I'm nothing like him," Powell says.
"He's my son," Jones repeats.
"I'm nothing like him," Powell insists. "He's soft. He's real soft. It doesn't make sense that he's that big and he's that soft. When he walks around the house, I just look at him and I shake my head. It makes me sick to my stomach."
"He's my son," Jones says. "The father-son relationship, you can't beat that with a bat. To see your son up there getting the MVP for the defense for the national championship, that made me cry. I wasn't crying 'cause we won. I was crying 'cause I saw him up there."
Powell shakes his head.
"Don't listen to him," he says. "Don't entertain him."
Too late. Four years too late.
