June Jones has forever changed his image at SMU

[Mitch McConnell]

Regardless 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.''

[East Coast Mustang]

[NickSMU17]

Here come the battered person syndromers to criticize.

[redpony]

Can't and won't disagree with what was said. My opinion of JJ has changed considerably over these past few days. I used to believe that he did indeed come here on a mission. IMO that mission was to bring us back to respectability. He has done part of that but the job is not finished. He needs to finish the job before going off into the 'sunset'.

GO PONIES!!!

[kull]

Hopefully the IPF gained more traction

[NickSMU17]

It was already known that it was breaking ground next year

[Dutch]

my opinion has not changed one bit.

[SMU 86]

Hopefully the IPF gained more traction

The IPF is scheduled to be built next year. This was not for that.

[gostangs]

Great. Another manifesto.

[PonySnob]

The guy has one "magical" season against a bunch of cupcakes at Hawaii and he thinks he is the second coming of Bear Bryant..........hard to figure.

[Mitch McConnell]

Great. Another manifesto.

Others have posted just as long....so just cool it, buddy.

[jtstang]

I like going to our third consecutive bowl game (for only the second time in school history--the first without illegally paid players), after 25 years wandering the wasteland. So I am going to give Jones credit for getting us here.

[Boston Pony]

Results oriented as I am, opinion hasn't changed. The schedule for the program under Coach Jones is on line. The program has been to 3 bowls in his four years, everything else is personality, which I don't worry about unless it defers from results...

[SMU 86]

Mitch, he can recover but it will take time.

[East Coast Mustang]

I like going to our third consecutive bowl game (for only the second time in school history--the first without illegally paid players), after 25 years wandering the wasteland. So I am going to give Jones credit for getting us here.

Ssshhhhhhh...the commoners are worked up into a frenzy. Don't douse the flames of their discontent with your logic.