At Hawaii, where people still are amazed at what June Jones did with a shoestring budget and rather decrepit facilities, they wouldn't blink if Jones does the same thing at SMU sooner than five years.

"I'd be surprised if they weren't in a bowl his second year, maybe even his first," Hawaii athletics director Jim Donovan says.

Donovan, meanwhile, has his work cut out for him trying to maintain Jones' success with the Warriors. The months since Jones left Hawaii have been tumultuous.

Jones signed on with SMU within a week of the team's loss in the Allstate Sugar Bowl. One day later, Hawaii athletics director Herman Frazier resigned under pressure. There were many reasons, but one was the inability to keep Jones.

"He wanted to stay, and there were opportunities to keep him," says Tony Guerrero, a friend of Jones and longtime Hawaii booster. "The people running the athletic department didn't do a good job."

Jones, though excited about his new rebuilding project at SMU, admits he never would have looked for another job if the Hawaii administration had agreed to his requests for upgrades in the program. When Hawaii officials countered SMU's offer, proposing to raise his salary to $1.7 million and promising upgrades in the program, Jones saw it as too little, too late.

"It was almost like it was just talk," Jones says. "I didn't believe that it would happen."

Shoddy conditions

If there was one overriding reason Jones left the 50th state, which he absolutely loves and where he hopes to live after his coaching career is over, it was that darned concrete field that he could see every day out his office window.

For years, Jones had begged the school to complete the plans to install artificial turf so the team could practice even during the frequent tropical rains. But for years, it just sat there, a concrete slab lined by chalk for marching band practices.

After the 2005 season, Jones, with three years left on an $800,000 a year contract, offered to give up $300,000 a year in salary for the rest of his deal if somebody would put in an artificial turf field.

Still, despite his offer of nearly $1 million of his money, the field remained undone.

When it rained during the first few days of Hawaii's first post-Jones spring practices in April, the team, now coached by former defensive coordinator Greg McMackin, abandoned its soggy grass field and conducted drills in a gymnasium.

Jones' departure did spur action, however. Donovan says the school is seeking bids for the artificial turf field and that it should be completed by late October.

Another longtime annoyance of Jones will take longer to remedy. Down the hall from his former office is a wing of unfinished office rooms — shells, with bare walls and floors — where the football program was supposed to move. They sat like that for four years, with no money to finish the project.

Donovan says he is moving on that, too. He thinks the project will be completed in a year or so. The needs are everywhere, though. The locker room and weight room need upgrades. The archaic video equipment needs to be replaced.

The Hawaii state legislature recently approved $7 million in facility improvements within the school's athletics program, and the school's proceeds from the Sugar Bowl, after expenses, were about $2.2 million. On May 29, the university board of regents voted to accept a $5 million donation from the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation that will be used for facility improvement. Still, finances remain a major issue for the athletics department. Its current accumulated deficit is about $5 million.

In fact, shortly after Donovan was hired, he found himself being grilled by state legislators about the state of the athletics program. In a private meeting, the legislators expressed frustration and irritation that they "couldn't get straight answers about the economic health of the program," he says. In a public hearing before a state House committee, Donovan apologized on behalf of the athletics department.

Tough schedule

This fall, things could get rocky on the field, too. Record-setting quarterback Colt Brennan is gone. So are all the prominent wide receivers. The schedule, a year after Hawaii drew skeptics for its breezy route to a 12-0 regular season, is a recipe for disaster, including games at Florida, at Oregon State, at Fresno State and at Boise State.

McMackin, who will keep Jones' run-and-shoot offense with longtime assistant Ron Lee now the offensive coordinator, says, "You can never replace a June Jones. He built this program out of nothing. But I hope to continue the journey."

"I'd take seven wins and a bowl game right now," says Don Murphy, a Honolulu restaurateur and longtime Warriors booster. "Last year, that was once in a lifetime. I'd be very surprised if I ever saw us play in a BCS game again."

One last bit of Jones/Hawaii business remains. Hawaii is seeking $400,000 from Jones for leaving before his contract expired in June.

The matter is scheduled to go to arbitration this summer.