From the BCS to Duke?

Duke going to its second straight bowl game? Blue Devils fans can dream while the man who expressed interest in coaching at Duke three years ago lives that reality.

Former Hawaii coach and current SMU coach June Jones has spurned Maryland to stay put at the Dallas school, according to the Dallas Morning News (for the record, another Lone Star State coach, Mike Leach, remains in the running to be the head turtle). The most interesting aspect of the article for Duke fans, though, is the fact that Jones was interested in either filling the Duke or SMU position back in 2007.

Both programs at that time were among the worst programs in the football bowl subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A). SMU is the only school to receive the NCAA's so-called "death penalty" (the Mustangs 1987 football schedule was cancelled) and did not have a winning season over the next 20 years. As most Duke fans know, the Blue Devils have not had a winning season since 1994, a span that has included a 22-game losing streak, and were legally declared the worst team in the country when they backed out of three remaining contests with Louisville in 2007.

Since Jones left Hawaii after leading the Warriors to an undefeated regular season and an appearance in the Sugar Bowl against Georgia in 2007, SMU has gone from a 1-11 team in his first year to back-to-back bowl appearances. The Mustangs take on Army in the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl today at noon in Fort Worth, Texas. In the same time, Duke has had three more losing seasons under David Cutcliffe with a combined 12-24 record.

When asked why Jones would have been interested in the Duke job, Brad Sutton, SMU's associate athletic director, emailed  this excerpt from an ESPN story that was written in May 2008:

“When he decided to look around for a job, the two open positions that most intrigued him had defined bad football for a generation. In addition to SMU, Jones wanted to look into Duke, which has lost 25 consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference games.

If you go to a school that is used to winning, Jones said, "I would have people saying 'Wow, so-and-so didn't do it that way.' If you took one of those jobs and came up with a totally new approach, offensively and the way we teach is probably not going to be received quite as well..."”

How would Jones's aerial assault have worked against ACC opponents? Well, if Maryland hires a certain pirate, we may get an answer.