Jones Again Hawaii’s Favorite Son

It’s amazing in this nanosecond Internet world of ours that the top college football story this year should come floating to shore as a message in a bottle.

Hawaii is 7-3.

Haven’t you heard?

Improbable, illogical, far-fetched--you pick the adjective.

Hawaii started the season riding an 18-game losing streak, then extended it to 19 with a 62-7 loss to USC.

Who could have imagined on Sept. 4 the coach on the brink of turning a sinking program around was Hawaii’s June Jones, not USC’s Paul Hackett?

Late Saturday night, in another game experts thought it had no chance of winning, Hawaii stunned Fresno State, 31-24, in double overtime at Honolulu.

The win clinched a tie for the Western Athletic Conference title and should, if currents are favorable, secure national coach-of-the-year honors for Jones.

Because of time-zone differences and news deadlines, Saturday night games played in the 50th state never make the Sunday morning papers back East and warrant only a few lines of recap in the Los Angeles Times.

Message in the bottle: Hawaii is going to host the Oahu Bowl on Christmas Day.

Say it ain’t so, Don Ho.

“This is quite an amazing turnaround,” Jones said this week in a phone interview from Honolulu.

Quite.

Sports Illustrated, in its preseason issue, ranked Hawaii No. 109 among 114 Division I programs. Some of us actually thought SI was angling for a time-share on Waikiki by ranking the Rainbow Warriors that high.

Has anyone ever been so wrong about a team?

Should Hawaii defeat Navy at home Saturday, it will become the first major college team to win eight regular-season games one season after going winless.

What gives?

Bob Davie said he needed three years to get Notre Dame off the mat. USC’s Hackett is preaching patience as he tries to resurrect Trojan glory.

Lou Holtz has transformed a 1-10 team at South Carolina into a 0-10 team.

How is it Jones turned his program upside down in 15 minutes?

All but two of Hawaii’s 22 starters are holdovers from last year’s 0-12 team.

Jones, obviously, popped the Hawaii hood and made a few attitude adjustments.

“They had been locked in the longest losing streak, they didn’t believe in themselves,” he said, “and then got their butts kicked by SC. The mental hurdles were the most severe we had to jump over.”

Some questioned Jones’ sanity when he turned down a multimillion-dollar deal to become the San Diego Chargers’ coach this year to take the Hawaii job for $320,000 annually.

No, in case you’re wondering, USC never pursued Jones in its exhaustive search for John Robinson’s successor.

Jones would have said no anyway. He wanted the Hawaii job, having played quarterback at the school in 1973-74 and coached one year as an assistant under Dick Tomey in 1983.

“This is something I thought about 20-something years since I went to school here, that I wanted to come back and coach here someday,” he said.

Things are going so splendidly that Jones this week even had to deny an Internet rumor that he might leave the school for a higher-profile job.

Jones had a chance to become Hawaii coach in 1995, when he was coaching the Atlanta Falcons, but the timing wasn’t right.

“When I got fired in ‘96,” he said, “I knew it might be possible it might open in a couple of years.”

That entree was made possible by the firing of Fred vonAppen, who failed to build a winner and lacked the political skill to win over the locals. It got so bad that vonAppen and the Hawaii governor were engaged in a raging public feud.

Jones understood the political winds.

“You have to walk gently in certain areas,” he said. “Eventually you can get what you need done, but if you come in with a brash attitude, a holier-than-thou attitude about the people here, you’re not going to make any headway.”

Jones’ success has been a tonic for a state demoralized by a decade-long recession.

“I knew if we got it rolling, it would uplift everyone’s spirits, and it has,” he said.

Jones’ success has also revived the run-and-shoot offense, all but drummed out of the NFL by stuffed shirts who considered it a gimmick, no matter how many points, yards and highlights it produced.

With no tight end in the offense, the complaint read, teams couldn’t grind out fourth-quarter wins in the playoffs.

To an extent, that was true.

But the run-and-shoot is a perfect fit for the college game.

“Because it’s different, it’s negatively perceived,” said Jones, a protege of run-and-shoot inventor Mouse Davis. “In college, teams try everything. They’re not afraid to step out and be different.”

This week, Hawaii ranks 10th nationally in pass offense, ahead of such bomb factories as Florida State (12), Georgia Tech (18) and Florida (20).

Hawaii quarterback Dan Robinson ranks 11th in total offense.

Get this: Players suddenly want to play for Hawaii.

“We’re getting receiver and quarterback calls from all over the country,” Jones said.

Who can blame them? While Hawaii is playing run-and-shoot, other big-time programs are playing run and hide.

Hawaii rated 38th in last week’s bowl championship series rankings, ahead of Ohio State (39), Colorado (43), Notre Dame (44), Syracuse (54) and USC (61), schools that have combined to win 16 Associated Press national titles.

PALM READER

You knew it would happen. Jerry Palm of Indiana has broken the top-secret BCS code and is posting the rankings weekly on his Web site, collegeRPI.com, hours before the official announcement.

This is great news because Palm releases the rankings of all 114 schools; the BCS only gives us the top 15. Because of Palm, we can tell you this week’s local showdown pits BCS No. 61 USC vs. No. 65 UCLA. Gets your blood pumping, doesn’t it?

Palm says he can calculate the BCS’ final Dec. 5 rankings 15 minutes after the final computer poll, usually the New York Times, is posted on the Web, but he suspects the BCS will try to foil his plans by having the final computer poll released directly to BCS headquarters in Birmingham, Ala.

Palm also confirmed what some of us suspected, that one-loss Nebraska might be able to overtake unbeaten Virginia Tech for the critical No. 2 spot in the BCS. The top two teams advance to the BCS national title game in the Jan. 4 Sugar Bowl.

If No. 1 Florida State (10-0), No. 2 Virginia Tech (9-0) and No. 3 Nebraska (9-1) win out, Palm says, the No. 2 spot will be decided by which school the eight BCS computers favor.

“Right now, that’s Tech,” Palm said. “But if they only beat Temple, 14-3, that could change in a hurry. Or if Nebraska pounds Texas. The computers are pretty sensitive to scoring differential.”

As if, after last year’s stunning loss, Virginia Tech didn’t have enough incentive this week to stomp Temple?

ORANGE UPDATE

It sounds like an Abbott and Costello routine, but we’ve found a way for left-for-dead Tennessee to get to the Sugar Bowl and defend its national title:

Florida beats Florida State; Alabama loses to Auburn, but the West Division champion beats Florida in the Southeastern Conference title game; Nebraska loses to either Colorado or Texas (in the Big 12 title game).

There is also a crazy scenario in which Texas and Wisconsin, teams that have lost to North Carolina State and Cincinnati, weasel their way into the Sugar Bowl.

But you don’t want to hear about it.

HURRY-UP OFFENSE

* Here’s the Rose Bowl race in a nut: Stanford goes if it beats Cal. If Cal wins, Washington goes if it beats Washington State. If Stanford and Washington lose, Oregon goes if it beats Oregon State.

* It has become clear the SEC office should not handle the compilation and release of the BCS rankings. The operation is almost certainly above-board, but there is a perception problem when schools from the SEC are competing for the national title and the BCS won’t reveal aspects of the formula. The BCS rankings should be handled by an independent operator.

* Jarrett Payton, Walter’s son and a freshman tailback at Miami, wore uniform No. 34 to honor his late father during Saturday’s game against Virginia Tech. Payton had one carry for no yards in the 43-10 loss. Teammate Wilbur Valdez offered Payton his No. 34 last month, but he declined. Jarrett told reporters this week that he held his dad’s hand as he died. “It was the most peaceful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said.

* Penn State, a Sugar Bowl contender only two weeks ago, would drop to 9-3 with a loss to Michigan State this week and probably fall all the way to the Alamo Bowl.