Jones ready to make his mark at alma mater

For only the second time in 11 years, Junction City endured a season with four losses.

But if there is a silver lining, the last time that happened, the Dragons went 9-2 the following year and reached the state semifinals before winning three straight state championships.

The 2016 season was also the last for David Carpenter, who announced his retirement shortly after the season concluded.

Steven Jones, who won a state championship while playing for Carpenter, returned to his alma mater to take over.

"It's been awesome to come home and see a lot of familiar faces," Jones said. "I've been gone long enough where I didn't really know a lot of the kids, so I've spent a lot of time just trying to get to know the guys and meet them and see who can do what.

"With the coaching staff, it was an easy transition because I knew all of those guys. It's just a slow process of getting to know everybody."

In some cases, it can be very intimidating to follow in the footsteps of a legend, but Jones is ready to leave his own mark in Junction City.

"When this was all coming together, my dad and I kind of joked about two of the things you really don't want to do in coaching are follow the legend and coach in your hometown, and it's both," Jones said. "You have to embrace it. You don't have a choice. It's right there. You have to take it and try to run with it. The program is built there. It's just getting the things together that you want to do and moving forward. There's really not any time to just stop and think and worry. It's here."

The response from the community since Jones has been hired has been positive.

"From the very beginning, a lot of alumni reached out to me in support of carrying the program forward," Jones said. "The community has been great. We've had good parent involvement and met with parents a few times and talked about how we're going to do things as a program. The response has been positive. There's a lot of support there, and the parents are very involved."

Jones added that there would be some changes in the way he'll approach things from the way Carpenter did.

"There are going to be some differences," Jones said. "It's kind of hard to avoid the scheme part of it, because the scheme kind of dictates how we run the program, so we're coming in and using a little more tempo in our offense, and we're doing that in everything we do.

"Really, just the tempo of how things go is probably the biggest change for the kids."

Jones began his coaching career at DeWitt before becoming the offensive coordinator at Searcy, and he said that both stops were invaluable in garnering experience.

"When I was 23, I got the head football job at DeWitt," Jones said.

"I got to kind of do what I wanted and learn on the fly. That was valuable, but getting to move to a big school with my next job as offensive coordinator at Searcy, I got to work with an awesome staff there.

"To me, the last two years have been the most valuable as far as growing professionally. Mark Kelley (Searcy's head coach) has an awesome offensive background and the knowledge I was able to soak up in the short time that I was there, I really feel like it was beneficial for me to do that."

The stops at DeWitt and Searcy also allowed Jones to see how other coaches across the state run their programs.

"It's always good to get out and see how other people do it," Jones said. "You have an idea of what you want to do, but then again, that's all you know, so to get out and see what other people do and take some things that you like and keep it and other things that you may find that you may want to do better with, you can throw those ideas around.

"It just makes you more well-rounded to get out and see a lot of different staffs and bounce ideas off of each other."

A year ago, Junction City finished second in the 6-3A, and Jones said he has left no stone unturned in trying to glean information on the teams in the league.

"In coaching, you make friends, meet people and network and use those connections," Jones said. "You use those connections on jobs or game-planning, anything like that. I've reached out to really everybody I know that has any type of connection. It's all about finding that little bit of information on each team. I've seen film on everybody from last year and reached out to a lot of different people."

Jones added he is looking forward to the challenge the 6-3A provides.

"I think that Fordyce graduated a pretty good bit of guys, but they have a couple of really talented players coming back," Jones said. "We saw Smackover this summer at 7-on-7, and they have a very athletic group. Drew Central with coach (Rob) Cox, and his dad, Mike Cox, was at Bearden, so with those two guys there, I have a lot of respect for them. I know they'll be well-coached.

“Coach (Marcus) Haddock at McGehee has been there a good while and has had tons of success. He’s got an athletic team, too. Every football program is our conference does sound stuff. We’re just trying to find that winning edge of getting out and getting to know each staff and what they do. We've got some good coaches in this conference, so I'm looking forward to competing against those guys."

With a plethora of returnees back, Junction City should again find themselves in the thick of the race for the league title.

“Looking around at what’s on the field, we’ve got a lot coming back,” Jones said. “A lot of experience in key spots, so that’s really valuable going forward, and that helped carry things along in the summer.”

If there is one key to success for the Dragons, Jones said his team must avoid injuries, which was an issue for Junction City a year ago.

"Stay healthy," Jones said. "We've got to stay healthy. We've got great kids in the spots where they need to be."