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After nearly 70 years of watching or being directly involved with college football, Pat Jones says his three favorite college-level players are Navy quarterback Roger Staubach (1961-64), Texas linebacker Tommy Nobis (1962-65) and a running back Jones signed out of Wichita, Kansas – Oklahoma State’s Heisman Trophy winner, Barry Sanders (1986-89). During most of those 70 years, Jones loved the college game. Today — not so much.
The transfer portal, the former OSU coach states, wrecks the ability of coaches to build rosters and expect that developing players will stick around for three or four years. With regard to NIL and how it stresses athletic departments and strains donors, and how it adds a layer of complexity to already difficult coaching jobs: Jones isn’t opposed to players receiving compensation, but says the lack of a universal pay structure and oversight resulted in “anarchy.” People are also reading.
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“Revolting,” he said. “I’m thankful that we never had to put up with this stuff. “It’s crazy town.
I think it’s a dark time for collegiate athletics.” Jones prefers to reflect on positive memories of his football experience – like the first game of his head-coaching career. During homecoming Saturday this weekend, Oklahoma State hosts a pretty good Arizona State team for a 6 p.
m. Big 12 contest in Stillwater. At 0-5 in conference play.
OSU attempts to avoid what would be the program’s first six-game losing streak since 1993. This year is the 40th anniversary of the OSU-Arizona State 1984 opener that ended with one of the more resounding debut victories for any first-year head coach. In June 1984, Jimmy Johnson left OSU to coach the Miami Hurricanes.
In the room when Johnson received the Miami call was his OSU defensive coordinator and close friend Pat Jones. Cowboy defensive players signed a petition supporting a Jones promotion to Oklahoma State’s head-coaching position. Jones’ 1983 Cowboy defense had been sensational, giving up only 105 rushing yards and 13.
5 points per game. Regarding what to do and what not to do as university regents considered options for the Cowboy football job, Jones leaned on the advice of OSU basketball legend Henry Iba. On June 7, 1984, Jones was introduced as the Cowboys’ new head man.
Only 93 days later, then-36-year-old Jones took the unranked Cowboys to Tempe, Arizona, and obliterated the 12th-ranked Sun Devils 45-3. Sport magazine, which at that time was a reputable national publication, had ranked Arizona State No. 1 in its college football preview.
Leslie O’Neal forced a fumble that was returned by linebacker Rodney Harding for a touchdown. Representing his hometown of Bristow, Cowboy tailback Charles Crawford scored on a 45-yard dash. When Rusty Hilger found Bobby Riley for another OSU touchdown, Arizona State fans poured out of sold-out Sun Devil Stadium.
The 42-point final margin was Arizona State’s worst loss in 42 years. “Very satisfying,” Jones remembers. “The whole thing was satisfying.
That game set a different tone in Stillwater.” That OSU team eventually would be ranked No. 3 in the AP poll and No.
2 in the coaches’ poll before falling 24-14 in a classic Bedlam battle played at Norman. “In effect,” Jones says, “that Bedlam game was a national semifinal. I think that game put (the Bedlam rivalry) on a different level than before.
” The 1984 Cowboys defeated seventh-ranked South Carolina in the Gator Bowl to cap a 10-2 season – the first 10-win finish in school history. OSU was seventh in the final AP rankings and fifth in the coaches’ poll. That Cowboy backfield was so loaded that then-freshman Thurman Thomas was the fourth tailback on the depth chart.
Today. Thomas remains OSU’s career leader in rushing yards. In 2007, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
With Mike Gundy as a Cowboy QB who would become the Big Eight Conference career leader in passing, Jones-coached Cowboys also reached the 10-victory mark in 1987 and 1988. NCAA sanctions damaged the OSU program and Jones resigned after the 1994 season. He was an NFL assistant for the Miami Dolphins and Oakland Raiders before retiring from football in 2005.
He and his wife Becky moved from California to Tulsa in 2006, and since then Jones has been a fixture on Tulsa and OKC radio shows. For a 40th anniversary reflection on OSU’s blowout of Arizona State, and for a discussion of the current condition of college football, Jones talked with the Tulsa World before his Wednesday show. Tulsa World: I’m sure it feels crazy that you knew Mike Gundy as a Midwest City High School kid and he now is 57 and OSU’s 20th-year head coach.
You and Gundy are permanently linked. Jones: “Oh, yeah. We don’t talk a whole lot, really, unless I’m over there for some reason or he calls about something.
Or if there’s something I think he should be aware of, I’ll give him a call.” Tulsa World: Immediately after Gundy concluded his playing career in 1989, he joined your staff — not as a student assistant in 1990, but as a full-fledged staff member and the receivers coach. Jones: “I always thought that Mike had some real special qualities about himself in a lot of areas.
He’s got a blue-collar background with some Oak Tree touches.” Tulsa World: After your 1984 OSU smashed Arizona State, what was the reaction around Stillwater and from your friends in the coaching business? Jones: “That game finished so late that it didn’t make the papers that next day. There was a delayed reaction.
” Tulsa World: Now, every major college football game is televised or streamed. In 1984, a college program would get only a small handful of TV exposures. Arizona State was 12th in the AP poll and still the Oklahoma State-ASU opener was not televised.
The game began at 9 p.m. Oklahoma time.
The only way for OSU fans to follow live was listening to Bob Barry Sr.’s play-by-play on the Cowboy radio network. Jones: “People were calling our office that next week, checking to see if that (45-3 score) was correct.
” Tulsa World: Looking at NIL, what would you do if you were the commissioner of college football? Jones: “Pay them all a set amount of money. There would be opportunities to do extra things like (endorsements). You’d probably need to put a cap on (NIL).
The non-revenue (sports) – how do you handle that? It has to be addressed. “(Football athletes) were getting compensated before NIL: tuition, everything medically, food, (academic) counseling services. They had nice places to live.
And they were getting a stipend before NIL came along, so they were getting paid before this NIL thing. “Coaches can’t verbalize it (publicly), for obvious reasons, but they know how fouled up everything is now. You have to act like you embrace (NIL), if you’re still out there doing it.
” Tulsa World: As it is now, athletes are allowed to use the transfer portal and have immediate eligibility at a different school. How would you adjust the portal? Jones: “I would change the transfer rule to what it was before – make (players) sit out a year. You’re not refusing to let them transfer.
If an athlete was ineligible for a year after they transfer, then maybe you wouldn’t see 500 guys running to the portal at the same time.”.
