If ever the University of Hawai'i football team needed to pull off a last-gasp rally, today is it.

After a season in which the Warriors rallied for four victories — two in overtime — to reach the Sugar Bowl in a milestone 12-1 campaign, you hope they still have one big one remaining in them.

Is there somebody in the UH administration who can not only don one of those ubiquitous No. 15 jerseys but do Colt Brennan justice in the Warriors' time of need?

Because we're told there exists, more by calculating design than coincidence, the smallest of openings for head coach June Jones and UH to work out their differences before Southern Methodist University announces Jones as its new coach today.

Although Jones has sent out "resignation notes" to several friends and prominent boosters, apparently a mechanism to his being able to accept an SMU offer, agent Leigh Steinberg said the "situation is fluid."

Asked if the door is still open to UH, Steinberg said, "Yes."

It is a golden negotiating ploy to be sure. The kind of leverage the agent who inspired the film "Jerry Maguire" makes a handsome living providing. The kind of a bind UH stumbled right into like a rube in the big city.

It keeps the pressure on SMU, which fired its coach Oct. 28 and needs a name replacement, pronto. It also adds logs to the bonfire under not only UH athletic director Herman Frazier on the lower campus but now Hawai'i Hall and Bachman Hall, offices of Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw and UH President David McClain. It must be getting warm in the Board of Regents chambers, too.

If Jones had an "emotional" day boarding what might be his last flight as UH's coach as friends attest, then the past 24 hours can't have been easy on a UH braintrust that comes off as tardy at best.

It is a great position for Jones to be in and one UH could — and should — have avoided by sorting the whole contract issue out in the summer, at the latest. Plenty of time existed to line up boosters. Instead, at procrastination central, they have let it drag out in the manner of the 2007 football schedule and men's basketball coaching hire to the point where they have to come hat in hand.

When they do, hopefully they'll have plans for facilities upgrades and commitments and a way to pay for them without emptying the public till because this really isn't just about salary. Something their earlier offers apparently and inconceivably did not recognize or address.

If they don't provide the assurances of them to Jones, they'll have to ante up to get somebody decent to replace him. The word on UH, its facilities and soap dishes have been out in the open for quite a while and any any coach worth his courtesy car is going to have them on a wish-list.

Jones is scheduled to land at 5 a.m. in Dallas today, shortly after which officials and boosters of the well-heeled private school get to polish up their pitch and trot out the bells and whistles.

As a UH assistant coach put it last night: "I don't know what would stop him (from taking the SMU job) at this point."

Hopefully, when he flicks the sleep out of his eyes, Jones will also get a clear look at not only what he is walking into but, more importantly, what he stands to walk away from. Perhaps he'll remember what — and who — brought him back to Hawai'i in the first place.

Still, the clock is ticking down on UH's opportunity to keep the winningest coach it has had. But as Brennan and his teammates reminded us over and over again in this season of wonder, crunch time is where some of the most memorable work is performed. It is where champions distinguish themselves. Right now, UH fans would settle for the blind chipmunk finding an acorn.

The three biggest UH recruiting weekends will soon be at hand and some of the hopes for the 2008 season — if not beyond — hang in the balance. If UH loses Jones, it also loses perhaps half the coaching staff and some recruits. And that season opener at Florida is but seven months away.

It's time for somebody at the top at UH to step up and deliver a game winner.

The question is: Can they?

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