This story hit the social media world last night. GoASU has a full biography and group of quotes from colleagues. Jones seems like a blue collar guy who knows how to identify talent, which in baseball, is a vital asset to have in order to build a program. Jones has helped recruit and teach a number of major league players in his time at Oklahoma State, Arizona State, North Carolina State and Oregon State. It does say a lot about him that he coached at schools from power conferences, rich with baseball tradition.

The link here is obvious with Jones spending three seasons at NC State from 2002-04 while current Appalachian athletic director Charlie Cobb was also employed by the Wolfpack. If there is one sour note to this hire, is that Billy Jones was an assistant on a staff that was just recently replaced at Oklahoma State. It happens all the time in college athletics, but if that is the only red flag on his resume, Appalachian should be in good shape. This may cause some turnover on the current roster as is expected, but it will be interesting to see which players stick around. It will also be interesting to see if Jones keeps Chris Moore or Craig Scheffler on the staff.