Autonomy brings out the stupid.

I’ve never had much use for June Jones.  He was less than impressive as the Falcons’ head coach; his inability to control Jeff George was sadly pathetic.  On the college level, his claim to fame was lifting a Hawaii program from sheer mediocrity to being the most mediocre undefeated team to crash the BCS.  I can’t deny some people take him seriously.  I just don’t understand why.

Take his latest brilliant suggestion in response to the Power Five conferences largely getting their way on NCAA governance.  What came was inevitable, because the big boys hold most of the cards, but at least it sounds like the mid-majors were able to keep the transfer rules from being subject to the new voting protocols.  In any event, at least they retain some level of impact and some remaining relationship.  Jones wants to ditch that, too.

“I think the have-nots should go ahead and move to the spring just like the USFL did. I think that there’s an opportunity to do a complete other side of that division, and I think that if we don’t think that way as a group of have-nots, we’re going to get left behind…”

This may be the first time I’ve seen anyone refer to the USFL as a successful business model.   (Remember, this is the pro league that successfully won a plaintiff’s verdict against the NFL in an antitrust suit, only to be awarded a whopping $3 in damages.)

On the college level, what makes this particularly questionable is that it would be the end of mid-majors scheduling paycheck games against power conference teams.  For some schools, that’s mucho dinero you’re talking about.  Now maybe June believes there’s so much demand for spring football that ESPN and Fox would be falling all over themselves to throw money at the middies that it would more than make up for it.  But if that were the case, you kinda wonder why nobody’s thought of it before Jones.

Then, again, he may simply be pulling it out of his ass, like this:

“I can see in five-to-seven years, possibly, the public would demand to have the two leagues play, just like I think the USFL had in mind, originally, of the winner of the USFL playing the winner of the National Football League.”

For once, I’d love to hear a Jim Delany response to something.

The only positive development I can see out of this for the smaller fry is that it would make things considerably more difficult for programs to move to conferences operating football in a different season and probably do something similar in the case of player transfers.  I doubt that’s anywhere near close enough to make this an attractive option, but what do I know?  I’m one of the dumbasses who would happily watch college football in the spring.

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UPDATE:  The early reviews are in.  Let’s just say the critics aren’t raving.