Football Coach June Jones Dies at 73

June Jones, the pioneering football coach and quarterback who helped popularize the run-and-shoot offense across the college ranks, the NFL, and the Canadian Football League, has died at the age of 73. According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Jones had been dealing with health problems and entered hospice care two weeks before his death.

Spanning multiple decades and leagues, Jones’s coaching career left a permanent tactical imprint on how football is played. From his early days under Mouse Davis at Portland State in the mid-1970s to his tenures leading the Atlanta Falcons, the University of Hawaii, SMU, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and the XFL’s Houston Roughnecks, Jones championed a pass-heavy approach built on receivers altering their routes on the fly based on coverage reads.

From Portland State to the NFL and CFL Sidelines

Born in Portland, Jones was a standout quarterback who first executed Mouse Davis’s innovative system at Portland State. After going undrafted, he spent five seasons as a backup in the NFL, appearing in 17 games across four years for the Atlanta Falcons from 1977 to 1981, before logging a single season with the Toronto Argonauts in 1982.

Transitioning to the coaching ranks, Jones worked as quarterbacks coach at Hawaii, spent time in the USFL and the CFL with the Ottawa Rough Riders, and then joined the Houston Oilers as quarterbacks coach in 1987 under head coach Jerry Glanville. In Houston, he worked closely with future Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon, demonstrating how an elite passer could maximize the run-and-shoot scheme.

After serving as offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons, Jones was promoted to head coach in 1994. In his second season, he guided the Falcons to nine wins and an NFC wild-card berth before falling to the Green Bay Packers in the opening round. His Atlanta tenure ended after a 3-13 campaign in 1996 marked by a public feud with quarterback Jeff George, finishing with a 19-29 overall record.

Following a stint as quarterbacks coach and interim head coach of the San Diego Chargers—where he went 3-7 to finish out the 1998 season—Jones took his first collegiate head coaching job at Hawaii in 1999.

Transforming the Rainbow Warriors and Coaching in Hamilton

At Hawaii, Jones took a program that had gone 0-12 the previous season and engineered an immediate turnaround, going 9-4 and winning the WAC title in his debut year. He spent nine seasons at Hawaii, putting his own stamp on the run-and-shoot. His Hawaii run peaked in 2007 with a 12-0 regular-season finish before a Sugar Bowl loss to Georgia, leaving him as the program’s all-time winningest coach with a 76-41 record.

Jones subsequently coached at SMU from 2008 to 2014, compiling a 36-43 record before stepping down two games into his final season. In 2017, he returned to the professional ranks, surfacing in the CFL as offensive coordinator for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. After an 0-8 start, Kent Austin stepped aside, and Jones took over as interim head coach, guiding the Tiger-Cats to six wins in their final ten games.

As 3DownNation notes, Jones led Hamilton to an 8-10 record in 2018, securing second place in the East and reaching the division final before a 46-27 loss to the Ottawa Redblacks. He stepped aside in December 2018 to pave the way for Orlondo Steinauer to take the head coaching job.

“His belief in his players and commitment to helping them succeed left a lasting impression on those who worked alongside him,” the Ticats said in an official statement. “The Tiger-Cats extend their heartfelt condolences to the Jones family, his friends and the larger football community mourning his loss.”

Final Coaching Runs and Lasting Legacy

Following his time in Hamilton, Jones joined the XFL’s Houston Roughnecks in May 2019. He later served as offensive coordinator for the Seattle Sea Dragons in 2023.

Though the explicit terminology of the “run-and-shoot” has largely faded from modern playbooks, the tactical concepts Jones championed—four-receiver sets, option routes adjusted to coverage, and rapid pre-snap reads—remain foundational elements across modern football at every competitive level.

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