ESPN Big East Blog

Posted by ESPN.com's Brian Bennett

Arthur Jones admits he was feeling a little frustrated earlier this year as teams constantly double- and triple-teamed him. And why wouldn't they? He is Syracuse's most imposing defensive player, a nose tackle who piled up 17.5 tackles for loss last year as a sophomore.

So Big East teams knew to load up against him. Notre Dame did not on Saturday.

"They only doubled me maybe three or four times throughout the game," Jones said. "I guess they figured since they have five-star recruits, they could block me. I guess that was their mistake."

The Irish didn't do much blocking against Jones. He registered 15 tackles on his way to earning Big East defensive player of the week honors and helping his team to the 24-23 victory.

The 6-foot-4, 291-pounder said celebrating in the South Bend snow was a career highlight.

"It's a feeling we'll be talking about for years down the road," he said. "When I got back to campus, I had like 100 Facebook messages and my mailbox filled up twice. It's an amazing feeling, and hopefully we keep this thing going."

The next stop for Syracuse (3-8, 1-5 Big East) is at Cincinnati this Saturday. The Bearcats will be playing to win a conference title, while the Orange are still playing for pride.

"We're definitely trying to spoil Cincinnati's season," Jones said. "We want to get this winning streak rolling and carry it on to next year. We have a lot of guys who are still growing and getting better even though it's our 12th game."

Syracuse isn't going to sneak up on Cincinnati now. And the Bearcats know better than to underestimate Jones.

"He's an outstanding player who's going to play on Sundays," Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly said. "With his combination of size and speed, he's going to make a lot of plays, whether he's in the Big East or the SEC. He's that caliber of a player. Obviously, we've got to do a great job of accounting for him. We've got to get four hands on him. You can't single block him."