Questions from a Hawaii fan

by **Warbow** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 4:53 pm

If you guys had to do it all over again knowing how bad this and future seasons would turn out, would you still hire June Jones? Is a few seasons of bowl glory worth it? Did June Jones earn his money while there with those bowl seasons?

How does June Jones rank on your all time coaches?

If you asked me, June Jones is more of a program wrecker that fixer upper, like he claims to be. He left both Hawaii and SMU much worst then what he started with. Hawaii is still trying to recover from his departure.

by **Rebel10** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 4:58 pm

Warbow wrote:If you guys had to do it all over again knowing how bad this and future seasons would turn out, would you still hire June Jones? Is a few seasons of bowl glory worth it? Did June Jones earn his money while there with those bowl seasons?

How does June Jones rank on your all time coaches?

If you asked me, June Jones is more of a program wrecker that fixer upper, like he claims to be. He left both Hawaii and SMU much worst then what he started with. Hawaii is still trying to recover from his departure.

Yes they should have hired him at the time. But the real question is should they have fired him after the ASU fiasco. Yes because that is when things started going downhill.

by **SMU2007** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 5:01 pm

Others might disagree, but I vote overwhelmingly NO.

The CoC and smu showed that they were willing to commit to football and we would have seen the same change in restrictions with June or anyone else who would have been in his shoes. I also think that we would have eeked out 6 wins a few times to end the bowl drought with other coaches, but I guess we'll never know for sure.

I also feel strongly that we wouldn't be worse off than we were before we started with any other coach. His apathy was legendary.

So no. I don't think it was worth it and I wouldn't do it again. I appreciate the school changing restrictions during his tenure but I don't think it was because of him specifically.

by **Charleston Pony** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 5:07 pm

Jones brought some "instant credibility" to SMU given what he had accomplished at Hawaii but in hindsight, he probably bailed on Hawaii because he knew what was coming after that Sugar Bowl appearance. I give him credit for being smart enough to strike while he was "hot". He did get some guys interested in SMU who may not have otherwise come here (Taylor Thompson was one of the 1st who comes to mind), but the bottom line is that he tried to parlay his initial success into the ASU job and when that didn't work out, he bailed on SMU. Jones never really appeared as if he wanted to be at SMU, but we've got nobody but ourselves to blame for extending him and keeping him around as long as we did. As for whether he left us in worse shape than we were when he was hired...? I think we have to wait to see what next year's coach can do in his 1st year to make that determination. Hopefully whoever comes in here can win more than 1 game next year.

by **sbsmith** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 5:16 pm

I say no because a few bowls just wasn't worth him burning the program to the ground on the way out especially in this current CFB climate.

by **PonyTime** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 5:48 pm

If Jones did not come to SMU, I think SMU is still in CUSA. The early Bowl wins gave legitimacy to SMU for conference mobility. For a moment, we were in a BCS conference...

No Big East/American and no Larry Brown.

JJ saved SMU basketball...

So- YES - glad we had him...

by **sbsmith** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 5:51 pm

PonyTime wrote:If Jones did not come to SMU, I think SMU is still in CUSA.

No Big East/American and no Larry Brown.

JJ saved SMU basketball...

We would have still gotten in due to our market, let's not forget that Tulane got in coming off of 2-10.

by **blackoutpony** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 5:54 pm

sbsmith wrote:
PonyTime wrote:If Jones did not come to SMU, I think SMU is still in CUSA.

No Big East/American and no Larry Brown.

JJ saved SMU basketball...

We would have still gotten in due to our market, let's not forget that Tulane got in coming off of 2-10.

Ding ding ding we have a winner!

by **Stallion** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 5:55 pm

No. His best seasons were inferior to much cheaper coaches achieved during his tenure at

Rice (multiple)
NTSU
Tulsa (multiple)
Tulane
Southern Miss (multiple)
UCF (multiple)
Houston (multiple)
ECU (multiple)

by **PonyTime** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 5:57 pm

When we got in, TCU, LOU, Georgetown, Syracuse, West VA, etc were also members. Larry Signed on to be a coach in the Big East.

Not sure we would have gotten in on the first pass without the football success, but we were considered one of the fastest rising programs with the big turnaround in Football at the time. Our BBall program was irrelevant at the time.

Of course, we would have gotten in after all of those teams left and would likely be starting the American this year with a head coach not named Larry Brown.

by **Rebel10** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 6:08 pm

PonyTime wrote:When we got in, TCU, LOU, Georgetown, Syracuse, West VA, etc were also members. Larry Signed on to be a coach in the Big East.

Not sure we would have gotten in on the first pass without the football success, but we were considered one of the fastest rising programs with the big turnaround in Football at the time. Our BBall program was irrelevant at the time.

Of course, we would have gotten in after all of those teams left and would likely be starting the American this year with a head coach not named Larry Brown.

We would have still had Coach Brown imo. Remember that Coach Brown did not have a coaching job nor was anyone knocking at his door. In fact we were not knocking at his door until we ran out of candidates.

by **sbsmith** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 6:15 pm

PonyTime wrote:When we got in, TCU, LOU, Georgetown, Syracuse, West VA, etc were also members. Larry Signed on to be a coach in the Big East.

Not sure we would have gotten in on the first pass without the football success, but we were considered one of the fastest rising programs with the big turnaround in Football at the time. Our BBall program was irrelevant at the time.

Of course, we would have gotten in after all of those teams left and would likely be starting the American this year with a head coach not named Larry Brown.

Fair points, at worst we get in anyway but might not have LB of course this assumes that the guy we'd have hired in place of June wouldn't have at least brought us up to mediocrity as well.

by **MustangStealth** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 6:18 pm

No. We could have had a better coach for the salary we paid.

by **ideal** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 6:22 pm

Too much psycho analysis, hurts my head.
If Hawaii brings him back, you are crazy.

by **LA_Mustang** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 6:41 pm

I say yes ONLY because without JJ I don't think we hire LB. But the day after April 17, 2012 he should've been shown the door.