THE FUTURE IS NOW FOR JONES
Alouettes’ head coach would become a wanted man with a playoff win over the Eskimos
MONTREAL If Jason Maas loses the crossover East Division semifinal here on Sunday, the expectation around the Canadian Football League is that he’ll be fired and quite likely replaced by recently departed Ottawa Redblacks coach Rick Campbell.
But hold the phone. Time out. Just a minute.
While it’s rather unseemly to be contemplating the exit of a head coach with a winning record who could still end up in the Grey Cup game, let’s say Maas does gets canned.
In the event that Montreal head coach Khari Jones and his Alouettes defeat the Eskimos on Sunday, there would be another candidate to consider for a vacant Edmonton job.
The same Khari Jones!
The CFL coach of the year candidate, who piloted the Alouettes’ Flight of the Phoenix trip from a crash landing prior to takeoff this season, has his team playing at home in the playoffs after compiling a 10-8 record.
And he isn’t under contract for next season.
The Alouettes still don’t have an owner. And who knows who the next owner might want as general manager.
Or who that GM might want as his or her head coach.
And if both the Eskimos and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers lose this weekend, there might be two head coaching jobs open out West.
Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’shea’s contract expires at the end of the season.
And while there was word here earlier this week that agent Gil Scott and Als president Patrick Boivin had entered into very preliminary negotiations toward a new contract for Jones, why would he rush into anything?
So, where’s Jones at with all of the above?
“I’m just trying to stay out of it and just kind of worry about the playoff game,” he said this week. “But yeah, who knows? There’s a lot of stuff to get sorted out here. We’ll see what happens.”
It was in Edmonton that Khari Jones last wore a CFL jersey. It’s where he threw his last pass. It’s where played his last game.
Indeed, Jones was cut by the Eskimos in consecutive training camps to end his playing career.
Edmonton is also connected to the incredible turnaround Jones orchestrated in his first year as a head coach.
What happened in Edmonton the week he was promoted from offensive co-ordinator to head coach was the key to the season that followed, he insists.
The Als lost their opener 32-25 to the Eskimos, but he believes that first game set up the storybook success that got him to this game.
It was the day Vernon Adams Jr. came into the game to replace starting quarterback Antonio Pipkin. And Adams introduced himself as a new CFL star.
“I was happy with what I saw with
Vernon. He made it pretty clear in my mind just who the starting quarterback was going to be, and he kept growing in that performance,” said Jones. “When Vernon came in replacing Antonio Pipkin, Vernon just lit a spark under the team. When you have that kind of a guy, who can do that, you’re going to keep him there. He proved that.”
But there was more than Jones finding a quarterback to whom he could hitch his wagon.
“We found out a lot of things that first game,” Jones said. “We found out we had a room full of guys that will fight and not give up. We were down quite a bit in the opener in Edmonton and came back to tie it up, and came within a few plays of winning the game.”
So here they are, Jones and his unlikely collection of followers having climbed out of one of the most bizarre start-of-a-season situations in the history of the often Crazy Football League, hosting a home playoff game against the Eskimos and favoured to win it.
It was only days before that first game in Edmonton that the Als fired head coach Mike Sherman.
“Things just happened so quickly. I kind of credit that almost helping me a little bit because I didn’t have time to think about it or anything,” said Jones.
“We had already played both pre-season games. We were getting ready to head to Edmonton and we heard the head coach was fired. Then they were asking me if I would take over. I accepted. Then it just kind of went from there.”
Having the league insist on the removal of general manager Kavis Reed a few weeks later due to alleged violations relating to the salary cap was a blow to Jones.
Obviously, the former Eskimos player and head coach and longtime resident of Edmonton — where his wife and family have remained regardless of where he spent the season — had supplied Jones with good football talent.
“I have nothing negative to say about Kavis,” he said. “He brought me in. He hired me as the co-ordinator. He made me head coach. He put the group of players together that we have, and it was up to us to assemble it and get it going in the right direction.”
So Jones gets the Alouettes to this game and who will they play?
“It’s pretty wild that my first playoff game as a head coach is against Edmonton,” Jones said. “I went to camp there two years straight and never played a game there in the regular season. I got released both years.
“But I appreciate every stop I made, including those two short ones in Edmonton. It was a good experience to see how that team operates and does what they do. And yeah, that was the last jersey I had on, and the last touchdown pass I threw was in a pre-season game with Edmonton.
“In 2005, I got released by the Eskimos, who went on to win the Grey Cup without me, and I got picked up by Hamilton. In 2006, I was released again, but right when it happened, my phone rang and it was CBC asking me if I wanted to be a part of the broadcasts.”
Jones said he always knew he wanted to become a coach, and after a couple of years spent working in television, he felt the time had come.
He’s one of those overnight success stories that was a long time in the making.
“I’ve been with every team in the league except Ottawa and Toronto,” he said with a laugh.
He played college football at the University of California at Davis, arena football in Albany, World League of American Football with the Scottish Claymores, and enjoyed all-star seasons with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and less than starry campaigns with the B.C. Lions, Calgary Stampeders and the Eskimos.
His coaching career began as a tutor of quarterbacks and then as offensive co-ordinator in Hamilton. He spent two years with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, where he won the Grey Cup in 2013, the B.C. Lions and Montreal.
“Throughout my entire journey, I’ve observed the people around me — the things I’ve liked about coaches I was with in addition to the things I didn’t like so much. I wanted to take those things with me wherever I went. I knew I’d be coaching,” Jones said.
In the event Montreal defeats Edmonton here on Sunday, fans now have Jones’ resume should the head coaching job here become vacant.