I had never considered June Jones coming to UCLA as a realistic possibility until today because I thought I had heard that he really liked it in Hawaii and would only maybe leave for the NFL.

But with Dohn's report (in which the part about DeWayne Walker needing to be retained better not be true), I decided to take a look at Jones' record.

His nine seasons at Hawaii, 1999-2007:
9-4
3-9
9-3
10-4
9-5
8-5
5-7
11-3
12-0
TOTAL: 74-40

That's much more impressive when you look at how how bad Hawaii was before Jones was hired:

'94: 3-8-1
'95: 4-8
'96: 2-10
'97: 3-9
'98: 0-12
TOTAL: 12-47-1

Yes, in Jones' first year, Hawaii went 9-4 after being 0-12 the year before. That's ridiculous.

Jones has completely turn around the Hawaii program, which, despite the weather, has to be really hard to recruit at. Hawaii is not in a BCS conference, they're really far from the mainland, and their facilities are horrible.

Among the top complaints about Jones is his team's defense. Well if you look at the NCAA's 2007 defense stats:

33. Hawaii  348.9 yds/game
    
34. UCLA    349.8 yds/game

Yes, that's better than DeWayne Walker's legendary defense. Plus, Jones has NFL head coaching experience, which recruits might like more than DeWayne Walker's NFL assistant experience.

If there's any chance we can get June Jones, we have to do it.

To me, he's the best candidate left on the board among those who have been rumored as possibilities. Even if you don't agree with me about June Jones being the best guy out there, we should all agree that Jones would be a much better hire than DeWayne Walker -- and there's no way in hell we should lose someone with a great head coaching record to keep Walker.