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From the Orlando Sentinel

June Jones delivers Christmas miracle for SMU
Bowls, SMU, college football — posted by andrea adelson on December, 25 2009 8:40 AM
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Last month, I wrote an article about SMU that started this way:

“June Jones should forever be called the miracle worker of college football.”

Well, Jones delivered a Christmas miracle in time for the holidays on Thursday night, when his Mustangs totally embarrassed Nevada 45-10 in the Hawaii Bowl.

Freshman QB Kyle Padron threw for a school-record 460 yards and the Run ‘n Shoot that Jones has perfected in his previous stops was impeccable. But what is most important is the statement the Mustangs delivered — they really are back from the dead.

“I wouldn’t say the Pony Express, but it brings back a lot of boosters and a lot of the alumni to know we have a football team again,” Padron said.

The Mustangs were 12 1/2 point underdogs going into the game but served notice the horrible scars of the past should remain there.

It was their first win in a bowl game since 1984. The NCAA handed down the death penalty for major rules violations and canceled the 1987 and 1988 seasons. Since the Mustangs started playing football again in 1989, they have had one winless season, six one-win seasons and one season in which 10 games were vacated because they used an ineligible player.

That Jones did it in Hawaii was a nice little bonus. He led the football team there for nine seasons, going 4-1 in Hawaii Bowls with the Warriors. He also led them to a BCS appearance, a Sugar Bowl loss to Georgia to cap the 2007 season.

When he took the SMU job in Jan 2008, Jones saw a program he could resurrect. After going 1-11 last season, Jones was hoping for six wins this season. They are clearly ahead of schedule.

Now with only six senior starters leaving — and just two on offense — the Mustangs could be on their way to becoming the latest BCS buster.

“We not only beat them,but we beat them by a large margin, and it felt good,” senior receiver Emmanuel Sanders said.

SMU busting the BCS is a nice thought but I don't see them running the table unless some serious changes are made to future non-conf schedules. In 2007 when JJ busted the BCS with Hawaii the only team from a BCS conference he faced was a 4-8 Washington team at home in the season finale (faced an early 3 TD deficit) and in the WAC he didn't have to worry about a conference championship game.

Yes, a bit concerned about expectations getting ahead of ourselves. Still, I am looking forward to next season.

change the schedule? You disqualify yourself from the BCS if you schedule Whatamatter U. and the Texas School for the Blind. If anything the schedule is too weak for BCS consideration-compare to TCU's schedule this year-BTW TCU's Opponents are now 5-0 in bowl games.

The publicity is what is so good about this. We do indeed have some time before we start thinking about playing for a national championship. But, we are taking the steps to get there.

If this team stays healthy and the young players continue to pan out, I think we could have a good shot at playing in the C-USA championship game next season. I know there will be some good competition in the west (Rice and their big-time transfers jump immediately to mind), so it won't be a cakewalk. If this team were to play in the Liberty Bowl next season, I'd consider that a very successful campaign. I think potential BCS-busting is at least a year or two away.

Wow - so far ahead I cant even see the tail lights anymore. Lets settle down out there, enjoy what we have done and work on the next step which is conference championship. We would need five full years of reshirted talent - (and that would be this years recruits as year number 1) to even think about running the table . Our schedule calls for getting through the lower end of the Big 12 to do that - which will never be likely for us.

In my view we need to drop the ags and Tech and pull in lower tier BCS teams - hopefully we can afford to do that if our home crowd starts growing - which we have not proven yet.

we need to focus on winning the C-USA next season, and the SWC in '11 and '12. Do that, and everything else falls in line

-CoS

We definitely have some things to work on next season. Good point that one such action item is getting butts in the seats. I think we're going to be OK there. I would anticipate a sellout for TCU in home game #1. I think attendence will be significantly better if we continue to play well. Another thing we have to prove is that we can travel well to road games. We got a pass on Hawaii since no one expects a huge travel contingent to Hawaii on Christmas eve. I was pleased that we did significantly better than the other team though. Also, it looked good on ESPN that we had the cheerleaders, band, Peruna, Mustangs, and a very vocal contingent of fans in attendance. If we get to a more accessible bowl next season, the fans definitely need to show up.

I still have no expectations...but I could easily become addicted to pleasant surprises.

jtstang wrote:I still have no expectations...but I could easily become addicted to pleasant surprises.

time to get the e-meter out

We need to stop wasting our time thinking about BCS anything. Our #1 goal should be to dominate CUSA ASAP, so we are well positioned to trade up when conferences shift.

It is far easier to "bust" the BCS when you ARE BCS than to try to do it from CUSA.

Stallion wrote:change the schedule? You disqualify yourself from the BCS if you schedule Whatamatter U. and the Texas School for the Blind. If anything the schedule is too weak for BCS consideration-compare to TCU's schedule this year-BTW TCU's Opponents are now 5-0 in bowl games.

That's not necessarily true, Boise State busted the BCS in 2006 and 2009 with a FCS team on their schedule, Utah busted the BCS in 2008 with a FCS team on their schedule, TCU busted the BCS in 2009 with a FCS team on their schedule. JJ's own Hawaii team busted the BCS in 2007 with 2 FCS teams on the schedule. We don't need to have 2 Big 12 teams on the schedule to bust the BCS, these days all it would take is TCU, a FCS team and 2 lower-tier FBS teams.

Oh grow a pair. This attitude that maybe we can slide through the back door when nobody is looking nauseates me. If this is the attitude then the BCS Conference are entirely correct in stating that non-BCS schools that don't play a challenging schedule do not deserve a BCS bid. They DON'T. Big 12 and SEC teams have to play a strong schedule in each conference game-the SEC in particular is brutal-the Big 12 South in 2008 was too. I would like to see SMU EARN a BCS bowl bid some day. TCU has about a 75% winning record against BCS Conference teams and that's why they have earned National respect.

I echo the call to tap the brakes a bit. Remember June's record his second year at Hawaii. We need to assemble a little more talent before we talk about the potential for an undefeated season.