Ex-Hawaii football coach June Jones has agreed to a five year deal worth about 2 million per year to coach the Southern Methodist University Mustangs of Conference USA. It wasn’t news that Jones was going to leave and on such a high note as a BCS appearance. There is no denying Jones did a great job at Hawaii after taking over a team that went 0-12 and turning that around to several winning seasons and a BCS appearance. June Jones brought that crazy pass game that seems to work in college football against teams with less speed and athletic talent and Hawaii excelled at it with lots of big yard passers and record breakers along the way.
What he brings to SMU is the same passing attack but the team already has that with sophomore quarterback Justin Willis already throwing for over 2,900 yards and 25 touchdowns. The June Jones’ passing attack will still work here as he already has a pass happy offense and is in Conference USA where the whole league is really offense minded with the exception of maybe Southern Miss. The only question is, can Jones’ offense outscore other high scoring teams in the league like Tulsa, Houston, East Carolina, Central Florida, and Memphis. Jones should definitely improve on the teams record but that is not hard as the team went 0-8 in conference play and 1-11 overall.
The hard part will be tweaking the offense to be more productive and getting a decent defense that can stop big plays and third down conversions and that will all depend on recruiting. Jones did a great job of getting some decent players from Hawaii and the closest states to him. With Texas being a football goldmine for coaches, Jones should be able to recruit some talented players. SMU definitely hired the right coach but should limit it’s expectations as Conference USA is not a two team league like the WAC where only Hawaii and Boise State are very competitive. A BCS bowl berth is most likely not in the cards but seasons of winning records and Bowl appearances could definitely be seen.