Jones sets bowl as goal for SMU
Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 9:50 pmFrom 
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DALLAS — Coach June Jones greatly overestimated what kind of success SMU could have on the field his first season. He admits that.
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"We had an opportunity, I felt, that we'd probably win four or five games," Jones says now, though he never made such a public prediction before his first game. "Then I kind of said, if we win four or five, it may lead to one or two more."
The Mustangs instead will begin their second season under Jones the same way as the first: With a 10-game losing streak and coming off a 1-11 record.
Still, Jones is making a much more public proclamation this time.
"This season or next season, we're going to a bowl game," Jones said. "I'll be really disappointed if we don't win enough games to go to a bowl game this year."
A lofty goal for a program that has had only one winning record (6-5 in 1997) in the 20 seasons since returning from the NCAA death penalty for paying players and breaking rules.
Jones knows about rebuilding awful programs. He took over a winless Hawai'i team that went 9-4 his first season, the biggest turnaround in NCAA history. He was 75-41 in nine seasons at Hawai'i, where his last game was in a BCS bowl, the Sugar Bowl on New Year's Day 2008.
At SMU, Jones installed his run-and-shoot offense before last season. He had a true freshman quarterback who started every game, learning a scheme he had never played. Bo Levi Mitchell threw for 2,865 yards and 24 touchdowns, but also had 23 interceptions.
"It was probably unfair to him to throw him into the situation he was in, but we kind of knew that's what we had to do," Jones said. "He was feeling his way while the receivers are learning what they're doing. For him, he got better as the season went on."
The Mustangs do return two of the nation's most productive receivers in senior Emmanuel Sanders (67 catches, 958 yards, nine TDs) and junior Aldrick Robinson (59, 1,047, 11). On defense, the Mustangs plan to utilize more three-man fronts, a move that frees up Youri Yenga, who had a team-high 6 1/2 sacks last season, to move from end to outside linebacker.
Overall, Jones said his team "from January to now, this is a different group of kids," a group that stayed together and learned from last season.
"That builds for what we're going to do this year," Jones said. "That 1-11 season will be the reason we win and learn how to do it."
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