Worst era of a coach

[couch 'em]

Do I have to pull the stats again? The team under JJ is substantially different from Phil Bennett teams in 2 areas: Mason's D has been much better than Bennett's ever was, and scheduling is a little mire advantageous now because, although our hardest teams may be harder , a loss is still a loss, we have mire beatable teams and thus more possible wins.

The offense is actually less productive than the Rusty Burns offense.

We havent really gone that far.

[ozfan]

Jones doesn't compare to Bennett, Caven, Rosley or Gregg. Nothing against these coaches as they all had huge barriers to success but they didn't win. And James Steward, HN Russell, Chalmer Woodard, and Bill Meek had pretty crummy records at SMU.

I agree SMU has had some bad coaches. Rusty Russel would have been ok if Matty Bell had stuck to the AD job instead of telling Russel what to do. Meeks was a bad coach with the talent he had.

[ojaipony]

This is the quandary of June Jones.

On one hand he took SMU out of the wilderness and into four bowls where the Mustangs won three smashing victories and could (should) have claimed four wins in all.

On the other hand SMU football seems to have plateaued and wanders in the mediocre netherworld between good teams and bad.

A decade ago I would have cut off my right arm and laid it at JJ's feet for a 3-1 bowl record. I'm grateful for the success JJ has achieved but hungry to move further up the ladder.

This is exactly how I feel. I was a student 1989-1993. So the questions are:

1 - where do we go from here? extend JJ or find an "upgrade"? Who's the upgrade? Everyone spends so much of their energy gripping, but who would you REPLACE him with?!?!? Let's put our energy there? I've made many suggestions over the last couple of years. Who do YOU think?

2 - How did tcu do in ooc scheduling during their run up? who did they schedule? I would argue that mwc was weaker than our cusa? Did they just beat on terrible opponents and run the table while doing other things "right" (competitive coach with swagger, uniforms, etc)? Quite frankly, that's what I think our "phase 2" should be (phase 1 is hiring JJ and getting out of the cellar, phase 2 is showing it in W-Ls, then phase 3 is playing with the big boys ala what TCU is doing now -- well, last 2-3 years) . . . we are coming to the end of phase 1. what does phase 2 look like?

[Bergermeister]

We havent really gone that far.

Four bowls, 4 years. Respectfully disagree with your spin.

[couch 'em]

2 - How did tcu do in ooc scheduling during their run up? who did they schedule? I would argue that mwc was weaker than our cusa? Did they just beat on terrible opponents and run the table while doing other things "right" (competitive coach with swagger, uniforms, etc)?

Maybe this is rhetorical, but there are a dozen websites that can easily answer this question.
Every college football record can be accessed here: http://football.stassen.com/records/

A great site with records only to 1970, but with lots of stats, yardage, etc is here: http://totalfootballstats.com/

So first off, TCU was not in the MWC until year 5 of of Fatterson, or year 8 of their rebuilding which really started with Franchione.

Comparing first 6 years of Fran/Patterson to June's first 6 years:

TCU:
1998 7-5 WAC
1999 8-4 WAC
2000 10-2 WAC (ranked #21)
2001 6-6 CUSA
2002 10-2 CUSA (ranked #23)
2003 11-2 CUSA (ranked #25)

You can see they played similar conference teams as we play now in that era. They were awful prior to 1998 going 1-10 the previous year.

Let's look at OOC teams:
1998
Iowa St (W 31-21)
Oklahoma (L 9-10)
Vanderbilt (W 19-16)

1999
Arizona (L31-35)
Northwestern (L 7-17)
UNT (W 27-3)

2000
Northwestern (W 41-14)
Ark St. (W 52-3)
Navy (W 24-0)

2001
Nebraska (L 7-21)
UNT (W 19-5)
SMU (W38-10)
Northwestern (L 24-27)

2002
SMU (W 17-6)
Northwestern ( W 48-24)
UNT (W 16-10)

2003
Navy (W 17-3)
Vanderbilt (W 30-14)
Arizona (W 13-10)
SMU (W 20-13)

So looks like mostly lower end BCS conference teams and a gimme game against NTSU or SMU. Note that this was in the stronger CUSA days, which looked very similar to the current AAC.

[Rebel10]

We havent really gone that far.

Four bowls, 4 years. Respectfully disagree with your spin.

Let's try to do better than 6-25 against teams with winning records before we proclaim that we have come a super long way.

[couch 'em]

We havent really gone that far.

Four bowls, 4 years. Respectfully disagree with your spin.

No question we are much better off and more consistent over 4 years with June than we were over Bennett. My point is that we aren't any much better than Bennett's 6-6 team. If June coached that 6-6 team we would have been in the Hawaii bowl based on his sway.

[mustangxc]

We havent really gone that far.

Four bowls, 4 years. Respectfully disagree with your spin.

No question we are much better off and more consistent over 4 years with June than we were over Bennett. My point is that we aren't any much better than Bennett's 6-6 team. If June coached that 6-6 team we would have been in the Hawaii bowl based on his sway.

...and you can't discount that.

[Nacho]

cavan and bennett are in a death match for that honor. toss of a coin. each horrible in his own special way.

[SMU2007]

We havent really gone that far.

Four bowls, 4 years. Respectfully disagree with your spin.

Four bowls in an era where the majority of teams make a bowl. That, and absolute crap competition where eeking out 6 wins is hardly a real accomplishment. Almost every single team in a BCS conference would win 6 games playing our schedule of cupcakes. And then we want to brag about winning bowl games against Nevada (with half their offense out), Pitt (who didn't care) and Fresno State? The bowl games were fun to watch, but to borrow a line from others, they were our super bowl, and the competition hardly saw it that way.

Yes, we are mediocre now and used to be worse. That doesn't mean that we should continue this nonsense now that we can sniff 6 wins against the doormats of D1 football.

[Grant Carter]

Almost every single team in a BCS conference would win 6 games playing our schedule of cupcakes.

Of course, in your hypothetical they are in the BCS conference so they get the recruiting and money advantages that go with that, but they play an easy cusa schedule?


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[mustangxc]

We havent really gone that far.

Four bowls, 4 years. Respectfully disagree with your spin.

Four bowls in an era where the majority of teams make a bowl. That, and absolute crap competition where eeking out 6 wins is hardly a real accomplishment. Almost every single team in a BCS conference would win 6 games playing our schedule of cupcakes. And then we want to brag about winning bowl games against Nevada (with half their offense out), Pitt (who didn't care) and Fresno State? The bowl games were fun to watch, but to borrow a line from others, they were our super bowl, and the competition hardly saw it that way.

Yes, we are mediocre now and used to be worse. That doesn't mean that we should continue this nonsense now that we can sniff 6 wins against the doormats of D1 football.

Four bowls in an era where more than half the teams go bowling is still better than no bowls in 20 seasons where a majority of teams go bowling. It is not our team's fault that the other teams were not as motivated as us.

[Bergermeister]

1984 Aloha Bowl - Bobby Collins, Head Coach
1985 No Bowl
1986 No Bowl
1987 No Bowl
1988 No Bowl
1989 No Bowl
1990 No Bowl
1991 No Bowl
1992 No Bowl
1993 No Bowl
1994 No Bowl
1995 No Bowl
1996 No Bowl
1997 No Bowl
1998 No Bowl
1999 No Bowl
2000 No Bowl
2001 No Bowl
2002 No Bowl
2003 No Bowl
2004 No Bowl
2005 No Bowl
2006 No Bowl
2007 No Bowl
2008 No Bowl
2009 Hawai'i Bowl - June Jones, Head Coach
2010 Armed Forces Bowl - June Jones, Head Coach
2011 BBVA Compass Bowl - June Jones, Head Coach
2012 Hawai'i Bowl - June Jones, Head Coach

[SMU2007]

yay mediocrity. Here are the wins to get us to those 4 games:

2009:
SFA
UAB
ECU
Tulsa
Rice
UTEP
Tulane

2010:
UAB
Wash St.
Rice
Tulsa
Tulane
Marshall
ECU

2011:
UTEP
NW St.
Memphis
TCU* (this was a great win)
Tulane
Rice

2012:
SFA
UTEP
Houston
Memphis
S. Miss
Tulsa

I guess these wins get some people excited.

[mustangxc]

yay mediocrity. Here are the wins to get us to those 4 games:

2009:
SFA
UAB
ECU
Tulsa
Rice
UTEP
Tulane

2010:
UAB
Wash St.
Rice
Tulsa
Tulane
Marshall
ECU

2011:
UTEP
NW St.
Memphis
TCU* (this was a great win)
Tulane
Rice

2012:
SFA
UTEP
Houston
Memphis
S. Miss
Tulsa

I guess these wins get some people excited.

Previously we were losing to those same teams. BTW you are making a very strong case for why it is difficult to recruit to SMU in football. Even when we beat the teams on our schedule, our fans don't care. We rarely fill our 32,000 seat stadium. With fans like ours I would never give SMU a look in football. What do we offer in football that would make us attractive to the top athletes? If you want a solid education go to Stanford, USC, UCLA, Rice, Duke, Michigan, Virginia, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, etc. If you want a rabid fan base pick an SEC or BIG school. I think there is a niche for us, but our fans are fairly delusional. SMU is not the most welcoming school for minorities and many top football players are minorities.