June Jones has forever changed his image at SMU
Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 10:41 amRegardless of the outcome of this situation at Arizona State, Mr. Jones has boxed himself into a corner to where he is potentially a man with no country.
The outcry against his hiring in Tempe should not be discounted. Why else would there be reports of ASU people slowing this thing down? With an apparent unpopular AD there, that also probably hurts this process as well. If ASU were to go ahead and hire him, the apparent toxic reaction would create for a difficult relationship.
Remember, Jones has always liked to walk into situations where he is viewed as the savior and where there's no pressure. He had that at Hawaii. He had it here. Now, if he wants to try something different in Tempe, good luck with it.
But leopards don't change their spots either.
At SMU, Jones' deity status has taken a hit whether the go-along to get-along crowd cares to admit it or not. Deep down, every SMU fan who truly pays attention to this program will not look at Jones in the same way. They just won't.
The trust developed by he and his staff with this fanbase will be lacking and more and more people will either privately or even publicly question everything he is doing. One would suspect that what leverage Jones carried with him in these four years is no longer at his disposal.
Given those scenarios, my belief is that the SMU leadership should approach Jones this week by saying, "June, here's what we can do for you and your assistants financially. You're aware of the IPF situation with the funding and location but because of the Bush Library and Moody, we can't be one big construction zone. It will come but it can't happen on the timeframe we would all like.
"In addition, we will at least run some of these athletic friendly majors through committee to test and see if there are any merit to them. But there are no promises that these will be accepted.
However, if you believe that should you get an offer from Arizona State or want to continue talks with Arizona State without an offer, you need to let us know THIS WEEK because we need to move one way or another.''
The outcry against his hiring in Tempe should not be discounted. Why else would there be reports of ASU people slowing this thing down? With an apparent unpopular AD there, that also probably hurts this process as well. If ASU were to go ahead and hire him, the apparent toxic reaction would create for a difficult relationship.
Remember, Jones has always liked to walk into situations where he is viewed as the savior and where there's no pressure. He had that at Hawaii. He had it here. Now, if he wants to try something different in Tempe, good luck with it.
But leopards don't change their spots either.
At SMU, Jones' deity status has taken a hit whether the go-along to get-along crowd cares to admit it or not. Deep down, every SMU fan who truly pays attention to this program will not look at Jones in the same way. They just won't.
The trust developed by he and his staff with this fanbase will be lacking and more and more people will either privately or even publicly question everything he is doing. One would suspect that what leverage Jones carried with him in these four years is no longer at his disposal.
Given those scenarios, my belief is that the SMU leadership should approach Jones this week by saying, "June, here's what we can do for you and your assistants financially. You're aware of the IPF situation with the funding and location but because of the Bush Library and Moody, we can't be one big construction zone. It will come but it can't happen on the timeframe we would all like.
"In addition, we will at least run some of these athletic friendly majors through committee to test and see if there are any merit to them. But there are no promises that these will be accepted.
However, if you believe that should you get an offer from Arizona State or want to continue talks with Arizona State without an offer, you need to let us know THIS WEEK because we need to move one way or another.''
