Toothless Tabbies shuffle the deck
Austin hands head-coaching job to Jones, will stay on as VP of football operations
With his team mired in last place at 0-8 and managing only a single win in its last 15 games stretching back to last season, Kent Austin fired himself as head coach of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Thursday.
Austin, who remains as the CFL team’s vice-president of football operations, announced June Jones will take over the coaching duties, effective immediately.
The Tiger-Cats are on a bye week and don’t play again until Sept. 4, when they host the rival Toronto Argonauts on Labour Day.
“This was my decision, to divvy up the responsibilities and to move the team forward in a very positive direction,” Austin said Thursday. “This was a decision that wasn’t made lightly and was under a lot of deliberation and I was trying to be as self aware as possible to do the right thing for the organization. I will always make those decisions with that as a backdrop.”
Austin said he has been considering the change for two or three weeks and believes focusing on the football operations part of his job will bring a positive impact to the team.
“I need to focus on the operational side right now,” the 54-year-old former CFL quarterback said.
“June’s very capable. He has a great track record and he’s a really good man. I’ve established a really good relationship with him over the last few weeks and he’ll do a wonderful job. I feel very comfortable that he can handle that part of it while I need to focus on the role of VP of football operations and getting this thing back on track in a really efficient way.”
Jones, who has experience as a head coach in the NFL and at top U.S. college programs, joined the team three weeks ago as an assistant coach.
Austin slowly started turning things over to Jones, who was famous for his use of the runand-shoot offence, and Thursday handed the 64-year-old the reins.
“He’s going to bring his perspective and effect change on the field as he sees fit,” Austin added. “It will be a different voice, a guy I believe the players will respond to very positively.
“That will allow me to focus on player recruitment and evaluation and other moves that we need to make structurally in order to get us back to the competitive level that we’ve been at for a few years.”
Austin took over as head coach of the Tiger-Cats in 2013 and led the team to two Grey Cup appearances and four playoff spots in four seasons.
His overall record, though, was just 36-44 in Hamilton.
Austin won a Grey Cup as head coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2007 before spending five seasons as the offensive co-ordinator at the University of Mississippi, his alma mater.
Stepping down as coach couldn’t have been an easy decision for him.
“I think everybody in here would know I was lying if I said there wasn’t an element of it that’s disappointing,” Austin said. “But you have to keep the bigger picture in focus. I have another role with the organization and we looked at making the best decision for the organization.”
Like Austin, Jones was a quarterback before becoming a coach, suiting up for the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and the Argos in the CFL.
His head-coaching resume includes stops at the University of Hawaii, Southern Methodist University, the Falcons and the San Diego Chargers.
He also worked as an offensive co-ordinator with the Ottawa Rough Riders in the CFL, the Falcons, the Detroit Lions and Houston Oilers and got his coaching start with the Houston Gamblers of the USFL.
The Tiger-Cats have not won a game since last Oct. 21, when they beat Ottawa 39-36 in overtime.
Austin said even if they had won a few games here and there, it likely wouldn’t have changed his decision.
“You don’t want to mask issues because you have a handful of wins,” he said.
“If there are issues that still need to be addressed to get this team back to the competitive level that our fans deserve and we have experienced since we’ve been here, the problem with winning a couple of those games is you might fall into the trap of not evaluating things honestly and making proper and informed decisions of the organization.”
Austin believes things can be turned around relatively quickly. It might be too late for this season, although heading into play this week the Tiger-Cats were still only six points out of a playoff spot.
“I believe in the men that are here and I believe in the talent we have from coaches to personnel in the back office to core players that are on the football field,” he said.
“Do we have to make some changes? We sure do. Do we have to get better across the board? We do. That’s why I’m focusing my energy as the VP of football operations, to make those changes.”