SMU Is Gaining Ground on Recruiting

February 4 2011 Last updated at 01:25 PM ET

During the first two seasons of June Jones' tenure at SMU, he and his players would walk through airports in different cities and passersby would ask what SMU stood for and where the school was located.

It was a reality check for Jones, who was well-versed on the storied history of an SMU program that was one of the top teams in the country in the early 80s and boasted the nation's best running back tandem in Eric Dickerson and Craig James.

It was proof of just how far the SMU program had fallen off the map.

And it wasn't just airports. Jones encountered the same questions when he approached some of the bigger recruits in Texas and California, a place his staff recruited when he was in Hawaii. He'd often have to recap the school's history just to get a kid on campus.

But this year, as Jones and his staff hit the road, things changed. After going to two consecutive bowl games, playing 10 games on national television the past two years after playing none for several seasons before Jones arrived, and winning Conference USA's West Division, the SMU coaches found more recruits willing to open their doors and more high schools willing to pitch their kids to the Dallas-based school.

"It's night and day," Jones said of recruiting now vs. two years ago when he started with the program. "The response we've gotten from playing in December and the bowl games has really helped us. And I really think the ESPN 30 for 30 really put us on the map with these kids. A lot of the kids really didn't know that history and that SMU really was a top team in the 80s and I think now there is no question who SMU is."

SMU signed 28 recruits this year in what Jones called his best class since he arrived on campus in 2008. The group includes Davon Moreland, a Rivals.com-ranked four-star recruit, which is the highest-ranked player SMU has picked up since the recruiting services started their rankings. Moreland is one of six players from California, the most players Jones has secured from that state since his days as the head coach at Hawaii.

He also focused on defense, a side that hasn't come along as quickly as the offense, but is leaps and bounds better than it was before Jones took over. Fifteen of the Mustangs' 28 recruits are from the defensive side of the ball.

"I think we're about a half class from really being where we want to be," Jones said. "Either this next season or the year after, we feel we're in the position to win the game because we really improved our defense. And I think we can really be in a position to make one of those BCS runs like we did at Hawaii in '08."

While Jones is proud of his class and the depth he's built during the past few years, he said the thing that he was most impressed with this season was his staff's ability to get players that even last year would have shut their doors or turned up their noses at the thought of a program like SMU.

But Jones knows he's on to something good, which is why he resisted the temptation to jump to an automatic-qualifying program this offseason and continued to build the tradition he's started at SMU. And it's not just wins and losses, it's television exposure, allowing players such as Dickerson, James and many others to come back to campus and support their school, it's hyping up players such as receiver Emmanuel Sanders, who will be playing in the Super Bowl with the Pittsburgh Steelers this weekend.

"We probably got about 17 or 18 kids that we wouldn't have had a chance at before," Jones said. "We're getting into the homes now of those upper-tier guys where we couldn't get into those before. And it's not just winning, it's everything and kids are starting to identify with SMU more than ever before."

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