Lawrence "Biff" Jones

Sport: Coach

Induction Year: 1966

University: LSU

Induction Year: 1966

“Frankly, Huey Long worries me,” Lawrence M. Jones said when James Broussard, chairman of athletics at LSU, telephoned him about succeeding Russ Cohen as the Tigers’ head football coach in 1932.

“Biff” Jones, who had served as head coach and then assistant graduate manager of athletics at West Point Miliatary Academy, Knew about Long’s reputation for interfering with the LSU football program. Major Troy Middleton, who was then commandant of cadets at LSU, told him Long’s influence had been exaggerated by the press. “He’s really more interested in the band than the football team,” Middleton said.

After a brief visit to LSU, Jones still wasn’t interested. He told Broussard the only way he would consider the job would be if he were detailed to LSU as an instructor in military science, so he wouldn’t have to resign from the Army. That arrangement required the consent of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Army chief of staff.

When Jones took over the LSU football program for a salary of $7,500, the school was not awarding athletic scholarships. Football players had been earning their way through school with such jobs as cleaning dormitories, picking up laundry and operating canteens. T.P. Heard, who became the athletic director when Jones took over the football program, immediately installed a system whereby all athletes making a varsity squad would receive free room, board, fees, books, tuition and 10 dollars per month for laundry. Wit the country in the throes of the Great Depression, that was enough to attract a bumper crop of prospects.

In three years as head coach at LSU, Jones’ teams lost only five games. They were defeated by Rice, Centenary and Oregon in 1932, Tulane and Tennessee in 1934. The 1933 team, captained by 265-pound giant “Baby Jack” Torrance, was unbeaten, but played thee tie games—with Centenary, Vanderbilt and Tulane.

Jones did not care for emotional appeals. “We’ll teach them how to play football, get them in good physical and mental condition, and then let them play it,” he told Long. “It’s their game, and not a case of life and death.”

He introduced the double wing formation and a “shock troops” system of alternating units by quarters to keep fresh players in the game. LSU, then in the Southern Conference, was unbeaten against conference opponents in 1932.

The following year, a rebuilt LSU team strengthened by the addition of Abe Mickal of McComb, Miss., made its debut in the brand new Southeastern Conference.

The Tigers, ranked as high as fifth nationally in one poll, had two ties in SEC play. Alabama had one tie (a scoreless tie with Mississippi, a team LSU crushed 31-0) and was declared the conference champion. The Tigers were called “champs of three conferences with no crown to wear” because they defeated Southwest Conference champion Arkansas and Southern Conference co-champion South Carolina by margins of 20 and 23 points, and wer unbeaten in their own conference.

The highlight of that season was 7-0 victory over Tennessee which LSU mad 16 first downs to the Volunteers’ three. It was the first shutout defeat for Robert Neyland’s Tennessee team in 77 games.

The 1934 LSU team lost only two games but the season’s most memorable event was a confrontation between Jones and Long at the door of the LSU dressing room when the Tigers were trailing Oregon 13-0 at halftime in their final game.

Long wanted to talk to the team, but Jones turned down his request.

“I’m sick and tired of losing and tying games,” said the U.S. Senator. “You’d better win this one.”

“Well, Senator, get this,’ Jones replied. “Win, lose or draw, I quit”

“That’s a bargain,” Long replied as Jones closed the door in his face.

The clash set the stage for an LSU comeback led by Jess Fatherree and Mickal that gave the Tigers a 14-13 victory.

When Jones arrived at LSU, Long told an alumni gathering that he was the Tigers’ All-American fan. “They’ve said I tried to coach the LSU team,” he said. “That’s not true. I’m not a football coach, but we’ve brought some football coaches here to do the job. These are the finest coaches in the game and I can’t tell them anything about football. If I tried to do it, they’d kick me out. And if they don’t kick me out, I’ll not think as much of them as I do now.”

Long’s friends urged the senator to laugh it off and admit he made a mistake after the 1934 Oregon game, but that wasn’t the style of the “Kingfish.” He said he could bring one of the nation’s best coaches to LSU, but the atmosphere he had created made that impossible. LSU offered a $6,000 raise to Alabama’s Frank Thomas, but he turned the job down and LSU assistant coach Bernie Moore—who directed the Tigers to an NCAA track and field championship one year earlier—became head football coach.

Jones went on to coach at Oklahoma and Nebraska, building foundations that produced great results for his successors at both LSU and Oklahoma. His 1940 Nebraska team, with 38 of 39 players coming from with the state, went to the Rose Bowl. It was the school’s first postseason game. Jones’ 14-year totals were 87 victories, 32 losses and 15 ties.

Long, who was sick and tired of losses and ties, would never see the Tigers play again. Three weeks before Moore’s debut as head football coach, the “Kingfish” was assassinated.