Anniversary of Revenge Over UofH - Gregg & Jenkins Team-Up

[MrMustang1965]

Along with marking the official beginning of a Texas Two-Step designed to lead the Renegades to the CFL's Big Dance, yesterday was also the 13th anniversary of Southern Methodist University's great revenge -- a 41-16 victory over the Houston Cougars -- for what SMU still refers to as "one of the poorest displays of sportsmanship in college football history."

Ninety-five to twenty-one.

That was the final in a 1989 game between a Cougars team offensively co-ordinated by John Jenkins and a freshman-filled SMU squad coached by Forrest Gregg, who was brought in to rebuild his alma mater's program after it had received the NCAA "death penalty" for recruiting violations. Immediately after the beating, a disgusted Gregg refused to shake hands with Cougars coach Jack Pardee, who left his starting quarterback (the same Andre Ware who would go on to win the Heisman and play for the Rough Riders) at the controls well into the fourth quarter.

On the bus ride back to Dallas, however, Gregg expressed his admiration of Jenkins to an assistant coach.

"I said, if this S.O.B. ever becomes available, I'm gonna hire him," he remembered. "John is an offensive football coach."


Sure enough, the S.O.B. is now the Renegades coach under Gregg, the officially appointed GM, and the two Lone Star State natives are determined to build Ottawa a team that consistently contends for the Grey Cup. More than six months before training camp begins, the only thing people around here might find offensive about Jenkins is the pair of cowboy boots he wore to his press conference.

"Some red and black animal," he said with a shrug and a chuckle when asked what they were made of. "Some endangered species."

Jenkins is a unique dude with Ric Flair hair who Gregg says is "comfortable in his own skin." Along with the stompers, that skin was covered by a blue pin-striped suit he called "high style continental."

Similar fashion statements were made this season by Bo Rogers, a mediocre cornerback Ottawa signed to a landmark five-year deal yesterday, and Kerry Joseph, an error-prone quarterback who currently stands to earn between $300,000-$400,000 if he's back in 2006.

The Texas Two-Steppers are both big on Joseph, who is fleet of foot and strong-armed and thus capably equipped to direct the run-and-shoot offence invented by a high school coach named Tiger Ellison and since adopted and modified by the likes of Mouse Davis and Jenkins. Under Joseph guidance, though, the Renegades could turn the run-and-shoot into the stumble-and-misfire.

Jenkins has worked with an impressive list of quarterbacks during his 30 years of football. He had Doug Flutie and Jim Kelly in the USFL. He had Ware, David Klingler and Jimmy Klingler at Houston. He had Matt Dunigan, Anthony Calvillo, Kerwin Bell and Flutie again in the CFL. But never has he had a 32-year-old who turns the ball over as often as Joseph, the CFL's top interceptions thrower (23) and most- frequent (14) fumbler, of which six wound up in enemy hands. Asked if he could teach a dog Joseph's age the trick of making better decisions, Jenkins said in this case he "would be more concerned with the pass protection."

The Renegades gave up a league second-worst 63 sacks this season. Gregg, one of the greatest offensive linemen to ever play, might be more inclined to offer suggestions now that the coaching change has been completed. Under the old regime, he refused to interfere, nor was he ever asked for advice.

So determined to be better in that area, the Renegades are prepared to use three Americans on the O-line in 2006. That won't stop them from trying to re-sign non-import starters George Hudson and Pascal Cheron, neither of whom are in a hurry to climb aboard.

"I'm going to be very patient," said Cheron, who spoke contract with the team yesterday. "I'm in my seventh year, I know how it works. I'm not going to jump at the first offer, even if it was a good one. I'd say (the one made) was average.

"I left Hamilton because I was looking for respect. Money is respect in the CFL."

Indeed, the big cash is spent on veteran Canadians. Donnavan Carter, who is projected to be a starter but wasn't this year, will make six figures a season through 2009 after the deal he inked yesterday. A rookie in Toronto when Jenkins was the Argos offensive co-ordinator, Carter says the new coach knows what he wants and makes it clear to everyone.

"He's very confident," says Carter, who now plans to move from Mississauga and buy a house here.

Like Carter, DB Da'Shann Austin said he's also tired of moving, which is one of the reasons he became the fourth Renegade to forgo a shot at free agency yesterday.

"I didn't plan to get famous or rich rich in this league," said Austin, who signed for five years. "Money is overrated in life, period. It's about being happy. I feel I will be happy here."

Following the Texas Two-Step, hoping it leads to the Big Dance.

[email protected]

THE JENKINS FILE

Following is the coaching career of new Renegades coach John Jenkins:

1974-75: Offensive coordinator, Nacogdoches High School (Texas)

1976: Defensive coordinator, Arkansas High School (Arkansas)

1977-78: Secondary coach, University of Arkansas

1979-83: Linebacker coach, Mississippi State University

1984: Special teams/running backs coach. Houston Gamblers, USFL

1985: Offensive co-ordinator, Houston Gamblers

1986: Offensive co-ordinator, New Jersey Generals, USFL

1986: Offensive co-ordinator, University of Pittsburgh

1987-89: Offensive co-ordinator, University of Houston

1990-92: Coach/offensive co-ordinator, University of Houston

1993-94: Secondary coach/U.S. scout, Winnipeg Blue Bombers

1995: Offensive co-ordinator/U.S. scout, Birmingham Barracudas (CFL)

1996: Offensive co-ordinator/U.S. scout, Hamilton Tiger-Cats

1997-98: Offensive co-ordinator/U.S. scout, Toronto Argonauts

1999: Offensive co-ordinator, Milwaukee Mustangs (Arena Football League)

1999: U.S. Scout, Edmonton Eskimos

2000: Coach/offensive co-ordinator, Arkansas Twisters (AFL)

2001-02: Offensive co-ordinator/U.S. scout, Toronto Argonauts

2003: CFL scout (various teams)

2004: Offensive co-ordinator, Calgary Stampeders

2005: U.S. scout, Ottawa Renegades

http://ottsun.canoe.ca/Sports/Football/ ... 8-sun.html

[MrMustang1965]

from the Ottawa Citizen:

From head to pointed toe, he was a sight:

A shock of bleached hair above a face tanned bronze; his black suit was lined with thick, white pinstripes; the tie a fiery red.

On a foundation of crimson cowboy boots, John Jenkins stood tall over a bizarre, sometimes confrontational media conference. Ladies and gentlemen of the conservative nation's capital, meet the Ottawa Renegades' new head coach.

"He's not the politically correct choice," Renegades president Lonie Glieberman said in understatement.

And that's fine by the Glieberman management team, which features NFL legend Forrest Gregg as head of football operations. Just two days after an emotional farewell to Joe Paopao (the most beloved 23-49 coach in football history, as one reporter put it), the transition is complete.

The "expansion" house of 2002 has been cleaned out. Ownership partner Brad Watters, general manager Eric Tillman, Paopao, his football operations staff and assistants are all gone. Running the show now are Lonie Glieberman, whose father, Bernie, is majority owner, Gregg, a 71-year-old best known for playing under Vince Lombardi in Green Bay 40 years ago; and Jenkins, flamboyant, controversial, a southern caricature.

There's no denying the comic book potential in all of this: Lonie and his two towering football pals.

What could be more unconventional than a football operations director, in a Canadian league of 2005, suggesting the impetus for the hire was a U.S. college game in 1987?

Gregg was coaching at Southern Methodist University at the time and took a freshman team he expected to blow away the University of Houston Cougars coached by Jenkins. SMU was slaughtered 95-21, which prompted Gregg to tell one of his assistants on the bus ride home:

"If this SOB ever becomes available, I'm gonna hire him."

Eighteen years later, a fragile franchise called the Ottawa Renegades witnesses the punch line to that anecdote. Jenkins had some success with the Toronto Argos of the late 1990s and less with a struggling Calgary franchise last season.

He's best remembered for the run-and-shoot offences of his college and USFL teams, not to mention using videos of scantily clad women as part of his game-film presentation.

Going against the grain, hiring Jenkins on Gregg's gut feeling, is what Lonie Glieberman wants his club to be about.

On the edge. Defying convention.

In extolling the virtues of Jenkins, and in charting a long-term course for the franchise, Glieberman cites Seth Godin's bestseller, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Becoming Remarkable.

Ottawa football fans would settle for becoming competitive. Lonie continues to seek the marketing touchdown, while hard-core fans are starved for a winner on the field. Jenkins' attire alone will help the Renegades stand out from the CFL herd like a purple cow, but will the Renegades spend enough on talent to enable them to run with the big boys?

Glieberman said the club is not about to take on the payroll of the Edmonton Eskimos or Montreal Alouettes, but wants us to believe that, by scrimping elsewhere in the operation, all available resources will be poured into the football side.

It's a vital issue. For all their public-relations disasters this season, Ottawa can still be seen as a place to play if it signs some free agents and brings back the core of a decent group of players.

Anxious to be so viewed, the club announced three long-term deals yesterday, highly unusual for November. Renegades punter Pat Fleming, and defenders Bo Rogers and Donnavan Carter were the three pending free agents introduced as the head start to the future. Later, defender Da'Shann Austin was added to the list of those who had signed long-term deals.

"Championships are built through continuity," Glieberman said.

With staff throughout the building making their farewells, continuity starts now, evidently. The Glieberman ownership has been on board since June and made few hires -- Jenkins as scouting director among them -- before yesterday.

Jenkins and Glieberman both said nice things about quarterback Kerry Joseph -- "a fighter," the new coach called him -- but were non-committal about having him back to complete the club option year of his contract. Though he had his flaws and detractors, Joseph's return would symbolize something to Ottawa fans. That the team will pay a quality price -- $300,000-plus -- to a quality competitor.

The road ahead is hard. In his final days, Paopao achieved a kind of cult-hero status because word of the Jenkins hire got out while the Renegades were still playoff eligible.

What could have been a smooth transition was botched, putting a crimp into any honeymoon plans Jenkins might have imagined with his new team.

In his parting sermon, Paopao himself urged the football community to give the new staff a chance.

Gregg picked up on that theme.

"Don't prejudge it," Gregg said.

If we can take our eyes off the suit for a moment, the coach

isn't really the focus, anyway. Not yet. It's the football operations side run by Gregg, with those "500 player reports" on his desk, filed by Jenkins the scout.

Who's back? Who's coming in?

Over the coming months, if a picture emerges of a team building, sensibly, the CFL's most resilient fans will give Jenkins and the Renegades a look, no matter how much peroxide goes into that 'do.

http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawaciti ... 9d7&page=2

[Corso]

I'm the biggest Forrest Gregg fan out there. He was a great player, a great coach and remains a great Mustang. However, this is an awful move. I don't care if Jenkins has a system that's guaranteed to score 100 points a game. This shows that the idea of never burning bridges is more of a suggestion, that it doesn't really matter if you act with class and respect. There's something to be said about doing things the right way, an idea about which Jenkins never will have a clue.

[mr. pony]

I just saw a web site that claims Ware sat out the entire second half of the '89 game with SMU. Which is true? Did he play in the fourth quarter?

[Pony4Life]

I was there, and he did not sit the entire second half. I don't remember if he made into the fourth, but he played at least the majority of the third quarter. And when David Klingler came in, he was still throwing bombs downfield, further adding to the classlessness of that UH coaching staff. I don't have a problem with the current UH staff - I know very little about Coach Briles and his staff - but that remains the worst display of sportsmanship I've ever seen. I wonder if there were UH players wondering that day why they weren't calling off the dogs. Pardee and Jenkins were embarrassments that day to themselves, their university and to the coaching profession. They still should be ashamed.

[jtstang]

Yeah, they shoulda done what Lou Holtz did at Notre Dame and have their guys run out of bounds at the five to keep the score closer. That made me feel so much better about our boys....

[Pony4Life]

No, but you can run dive plays over and over again. If you can't stop a team then, that's one thing. Flipping 60-yard passes with a 70-point lead is shameful.

[jtstang]

I think they could have shortened up the routes in the second half, but run dive plays?? Houston ran the Run-and-Shoot and I'd be embarrassed equally by a team that abandoned their offense because our boys were too bad to stop it.

[mrydel]

I did not like what happened but the Houston run and shoot was a read offense. They took what you gave them. Our coaches said they assumed Houston would start running short passes after the big lead and our defensive backs played tight to defend short passes. That is automatic for the receivers to go deep. We should have laid back on defense and they would have played a nickle and dime offense that would have scored but moe slowly. The score would have been high but not that high. No way they were going to run dives, they were not set up to do that. That said, I personally believe there is a place in football he11 for Jenkins and Leech just due to their attitudes. Maybe we could get an offensive coordinator that could join them some day.

[Stallion]

yeah but they were throwing bombs the entire second half and were TRYING to get to 100.

[Stallion]

yeah but they were throwing bombs the entire second half and were TRYING to get to 100.

[mrydel]

No argument there. I wish that Jenkins and Leech would have to face each other with tight ends as QBs and 4.8 receivers in a game that was first to 100 wins.

[Vitale]

I hope next week's game ends Jenkins' employment. If (I mean when) we pull the upset, I hope Coach Gregg gives him so much grief that Jenkins quits like the gutless slime that he is. If Houston somehow wins, I hope Coach Gregg fires him.

[gostangs]

Jenkins record speaks for itself - the guy cannot keep a job more then two years. First class jerk. He should be selling used cars somewhere, except he would give used car salesmen a bad name. Gregg should be ashamed to be associated with him.

[MrMustang1965]

Jenkins record speaks for itself - the guy cannot keep a job more then two years. First class jerk. He should be selling used cars somewhere, except he would give used car salesmen a bad name. Gregg should be ashamed to be associated with him.

Look at Gregg in this photo. He doesn't look like a happy camper.

http://ottsun.canoe.ca/Sports/Football/ ... 8-sun.html