Ask University of Hawai'i football coach June Jones about his contract renewal status and you get the nonchalant shrug of the shoulders and what-me-worry? grin.

And, really, if you are him, what is the worry? What's the rush? No need for this former quarterback to scramble. Just sit back in the pocket and ponder the possibilities.

As Jones said yesterday, "When the time is right, something will happen."

Of course, if you're a betting man — and somebody who has thrown as much from punt formation as he has certainly qualifies — it is hard to imagine holding a better hand right now than one June S. Jones III.

Here he is down to the final 11 1/2 months of a five-year contract, approaching the most anticipated season in school history with its most celebrated quarterback and a Twinkie-soft schedule.

Can you say potential leverage?

Only the Mafia deals from a better position of strength. And the longer this drags on and the more the Warriors win, the better it becomes.

Should the Warriors win, say, their first five games before an offer is placed on the table, the negotiations get a whole lot easier. Eight wins and it is ridiculously easy. It would be like, well, taking candy from an athletic director.

The only limits being the depth of UH's shrinking pockets, and the ferocity of Jones' agent in improving the $800,016 annual base salary. Half of which the school has said is paid by donors.

This is precisely why it is advisable to lock up coaches' contracts, those of high profile ones especially, before they can get to a megabucks payoff scenario. Part-way through last season, when the Warriors were getting on that nine-game roll, would have been a very good point. Before they worked over Arizona State in the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl wouldn't have been bad, either. Heck, even immediately afterward.

But when Colt Brennan announced he was coming back for his senior year, things changed significantly. Here we are less than two months before the season opener with interest building, and whatever position UH might once have had has declined considerably as salary averages have skyrocketed nationally.

Meanwhile there is still much to be done. Herman Frazier said he and upper campus administrators are at work on a proposal to take to the school's Board of Regents to raise the salary range for the position. Then, there is the actual negotiation.

Now it is just a matter of how much Jones wants to remain here — which would seem to be a lot, thankfully — and how many suitors might pop up to offer him an alternative.

This shapes up as a payoff year not only for the Warriors' football team, but for the man who would lead them. All that remains to be seen is how big the bonanza.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.