DALLAS — Perhaps the best sign of changing times at SMU is the A-list cast of curious fans who have stopped by two-a-days to check out new coach June Jones and his new-look Mustangs.

Ex-Cowboys Troy Aikman and Daryl Johnston took in a recent morning practice. Wide receiver Terrell Owens has stopped by. Adam "Pacman" Jones and Devin Hester went one-on-one at an SMU football camp. ("Fastest drill I've ever seen," SMU wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders said.)

Not bad company for a team coming off a 1-11 season and two decades of post-death penalty futility, the flip side of the 12-1 run Jones had in his last year as coach at the University of Hawaii.

"It doesn't make you feel like we were 1-11 last year, for sure," said quarterback Justin Willis.

The billboards around town say "June Cometh," and SMU officials are hoping that thousands of new fans will follow. More than a month before Jones' home debut, season ticket sales are up 50 percent over last year, when the team's announced attendance was about 17,000 per game.

The attraction is Jones, whose Hawaii team came off its perfect season to become only the third team from a non-Bowl Championship Series conference to qualify for a BCS bowl. The Warriors, however, also became the first of those three teams to lose, falling 41-10 to Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.

In addition to crashing a BCS bowl, Jones' strongest coaching credential is his talent for reviving flatlined programs. In the five seasons before Jones arrived at Hawaii, the Warriors won a total of 12 games and went winless in 1998. Under Jones in 1999, Hawaii was 9-4, the biggest one-season turnaround in NCAA history.

SMU will test Jones' resuscitative skills. The Mustangs are coming off a one-win season, which came four years after going winless.

SMU hasn't been ranked since its tainted glory days of the early 1980s, troubled times that led the NCAA to shut down the program for the 1987 season and SMU to sit out again in 1988. There's been one winning season since, 6-5 in 1997.

Willis, a former Conference USA freshman of the year, could follow Hawaii quarterbacks Timmy Chang and Colt Brennan as the next record-breaking quarterback to study under Jones. Just a junior, Willis already holds the school record for career passing touchdowns (51) and has set the single-season record for total yards (3,643).

The offense returns seven starters, including standout center Mitch Enright and Sanders, who caught 74 passes for 889 yards and nine touchdowns last season. The defense returns five starters, including leading tackler Will Bonilla and Bryan McCann, who led the team with four interceptions in 2007.

Jones will lean heavily on what he learned in 1999 at Hawaii, even re-using some of the same practice scripts from that season. He says his skill position players at SMU are faster but the overall talent level is similar to what Hawaii had when he took over.

And while insisting he can return SMU to a bowl game, he cautions against expecting too much too soon. His first game at Hawaii, after all, was a 62-7 loss to Southern California.

Still, this is clearly a June Jones team running a Junes Jones offense. He calls the run and shoot an equalizer that allows less talented teams to compete, and he remains unafraid of challenging football orthodoxy with unorthodox calls, such as going deep on 4th-and-1.

"We convert it, but we convert it a different way," Jones said. "And we'll win doing it."