I emailed the following question to an acquaintance, a very well respected member of the SMU community, someone who has been very actively involved in SMU athletics though physically removed for some time and therefore a bit of an outside observer now. He's older and never frequents boards like this. As a matter of fact, I was a little surprised he answered my email.
Here was the question:
What do you think about the following statistic: "June Jones is 4-21 against teams with a winning record. To what degree is that a damning statistic?"
His response was interesting:
It is a meaningless statistic. It depends on a number of factors, including the caliber of the opponents' opposition.
More importantly, we should focus on our alternatives. How well have previous coaches done? What can be expected by an institution with such a small fan base? Could Alabama's or LSU's coach win consistently here? Is SMU willing or able to make a very large financial commitment like TCU did, and even if it did, could it (or TCU, Rice or Baylor) compete consistently with the state schools and their gigantic fan bases? We should be thankful for what we have, particularly since we lack the financial resources to fund a long term losing (financially) program. I don't think we will ever be in a position to even break even financially, no matter how successful we are on the field. All of this makes it very difficult to recruit and retain good coaches. Be very thankful for what you have. Everyone should be telling June Jones how much he is appreciated.
Last edited by ponyboy on Tue Nov 06, 2012 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By the way, I think there are some really good thoughts in there, but disagree strongly with what I read as a bit of a defeatist attitude in the latter part of the message. Thankful, yes. But always striving for more. I am thankful for what June Jones has done here. And I think his work is probably done.
You don't even have to go as far as comparing us to TCU and Baylor (our natural and traditional rivals), you can use Tulsa as the barometer. Tulsa is a smaller school, has just as small a fan base, less of a winning tradition, was even worse than SMU in football for many years until the arrival of Kragthorpe. Have we matched or exceeded their success? No we have not. We are paying much more for our coaching staff and they are equal if not better than us in recruiting and have surpassed our results on the field. Spin it any way you want, but June Jones is not giving SMU what it paid for. I say this as a June Jones supporter and do not even think he should be fired, but he definitely needs to make major changes to his staff to improve recruiting.
Minimum expectation: this team has been the last few years near or at the top of a relatively weak conference, and in doing so declared itself "BCS Ready" and made a conference switch in that direction. My expectation is that we stop talking about being that level and start ACTUALLY being that level. The Baylors of the world are our new normal, and this season we've shown an inability to play or recruit at that level. That falls on a lot of people: coaches need to recruit better, admin needs to make sure the coaches can and do attract and retain high-level talent, and players need to step up. Fans need to continue to support the program and we will need to grow that base (which in Dallas doesn't happen without consistent winning against quality opponents; nobody gives a [Fatterson] that we blanked SFA). In my mind, JJ, LB and RH need to sit in a room and figure out what needs to be done to get their respective programs the things they need and then start the lobbying process to get it accomplished. I don't know him personally, but I don't think you gain the reputation that JJ apparently has among his colleagues by half-assing your job on a consistent basis, so in my mind the question is what is really holding him back and how does it get fixed. And maybe the answer really is a change at the top; or perhaps the Athletic Department as a whole needs to blast through whatever roadblocks are standing in the way of a guy who took a team with a tiny travel and recruiting budget to the friggin Sugar Bowl. Whatever the answer, this team and this program as a whole better get their act together NOW because the BEAST is coming whether we are ready or not (and right now we're not).
"I don't think anyone around the country has any idea how good we are going to be." - Coach Justin Stepp
RyanSMU98 wrote:My expectation is that we stop talking about being that level and start ACTUALLY being that level.
Not going to happen as long as June is running this thing and putting in half efforts in the recruiting department. He'll just continue to make excuses, whether it's the lights or we're playing too tough a schedule or whatever else he'll come up with. Am sure if we play at Rutgers during November it'll be way too cold.
RyanSMU98 wrote:My expectation is that we stop talking about being that level and start ACTUALLY being that level.
Not going to happen as long as June is running this thing and putting in half efforts in the recruiting department. He'll just continue to make excuses, whether it's the lights or we're playing too tough a schedule or whatever else he'll come up with. Am sure if we play at Rutgers during November it'll be way too cold.
What else would you like to me to say? The guy doesn't want to be here and has proven that since the ASU fiasco. I'm not going to blindly support a guy that has no desire to work for this school or in this city. All he cares about is getting back to Hawai'i any chance he can get. He wants to remove the few teams that actually bring in a good crowd. He does little to no recruiting and just wants people that want to come to him. His ego is beyond ridiculous. He makes excuses left and right for why his team lost, without taking blame at all.
What else is there to talk about with this disappointing football team other than it's current head coach atm?
ponyboy wrote:
Here was the question:
What do you think about the following statistic: "June Jones is 4-21 against teams with a winning record. To what degree is that a damning statistic?"
His response was interesting:
It is a meaningless statistic. It depends on a number of factors, including the caliber of the opponents' opposition.
As I have stated on here numerous occasions,
JJ is 2-11 vs OOC
JJ is 2-11 vs C-USA
So the perception that JJ's record is bad against teams with winning records due to a difficult OOC schedule is debunked.
Oh, and one final stat:
JJ is 0-5 during last 5 games against teams with winning records in C-USA, so he is trending down.
ponyboy wrote:Thank you and come back when you've got something new or interesting.
If SMU were to defeat a team ranked #74, it would be JJ's 6th highest-quality win here, behind only TCU and Pitt in 2011, Tulsa in 2010, and ECU and Nevada in 2009. Let that one sink in for awhile.
Of JJ's 25 wins, 10 have came against teams that are either Division AA or had Sagarin rankings between #127 (Rice in 2010) and #182 (Memphis 2011)
