ESPN College Football

Posted by ESPN.com’s Graham Watson

Young teams can sometimes get ahead of themselves, and SMU coach June Jones knows that all too well.

	AP Photo/David Crenshaw
	Junes Jones has focused on changing the culture at SMU.

He’s seen teams that haven’t had much success in the past, placing too much emphasis on winning every game rather than breaking the season down into small, manageable parts and setting attainable goals along the way.

It’s the approach Jones has had to take with the Mustangs in his second season.

Last year, Jones told his team that he thought it could win four or five games and that those wins might develop into one or two more. But SMU managed to win just one game and was sparsely competitive in the other 11.

“Whenever you come into these types of programs like the one Hawaii was in and the one this one was in, the kids have been beaten down for so long, they don’t understand how to get to where they want to get to,” Jones said. “There’s just so much negative input and brow beat and they don’t believe in themselves, don’t believe in the team concept. They just don’t know how to do it. So, we’ve been able as coaches to change that whole culture and it’s starting to show up because we’re competitive.”

At the beginning of the season, Jones told his players that through the first four games, they couldn’t be worse than 2-2 if they wanted to go to a bowl game. The Mustangs defeated Stephen F. Austin and UAB in that span. After an upset of East Carolina, Jones then told his team that it had to win one of the games against Navy, Houston or Tulsa, which was no easy feat. Jones admitted that he thought the win would come against Navy, but instead, a freshman quarterback in his first-ever start led the Mustangs to an improbably victory over the Golden Hurricane.

“The team always feels like it’s life or death and that every game is a must-win,” Jones said. “They’ve got to understand that we’re not at that point where we can be like Alabama or Florida where every game is a must-win because they have a chance to be the national champion. When you’re trying to learn how to win, you have to understand that winning is a journey.”

SMU is now 4-4, 3-1 in Conference USA and a game back of the Conference USA West lead. Only Houston currently has enough wins for bowl eligibility, but there are four other teams with five wins. With seven bowls available to Conference USA, Jones is confident that his team could notch its first bowl appearance since 1984 with a 6-6 record.

“Our goal is to get to Hawaii and play in the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl,” said Jones, who was the former Hawaii coach. “I believe that if we’re bowl-eligible, we’ll go to Hawaii because of the possibility of selling more tickets and the ratings for the game if I’m going back.”

To think that SMU would be talking about a bowl game at this time of year was almost unfathomable in the summer. At that time, Jones had to remove several players from his program that weren’t buying into his system and his way of coaching. He’s had to bring freshmen and sophomores along quicker than most coaches would have liked.

Jones knew he was going to have to build this team around youth, so he tried to attract the best youth he could find. Of the 26 players the Mustangs signed this season, 19 of them were still playing in the Texas state playoffs the third week into the postseason.

While the Mustangs will continue to go through growing pains with such a young squad -- of the 66 players who traveled to Tulsa last week, 48 of them were freshmen or sophomores -- Jones said continuing to build this team with players who are used to winning will only make it better in the future.

“We’re one recruiting class away here from, I believe, being really competitive,” Jones said. “Where we can walk on the field and be as talented as the teams we’re playing. I mean, we beat some teams this year that are better than us. But that’s what you can do when everybody understands what ‘team’ is about, what ’we’ is about. What ‘putting the other guys first’ is about. And when you do those things, a team that’s not as talented can beat those other teams. And that’s what you’re seeing.”