Rhett Lashlee sent his offense out on fourth-and-2 from SMU's own 33 with the game tied 7-7 at Louisville, and the play lost three yards. Louisville scored four plays later. In the fourth quarter, trailing 35-31, Lashlee called a Wildcat trick play from the Louisville 36 with tight end Randy Pittman throwing back to Kevin Jennings, and that one missed the marker too. "I called two awful fourth-and-short calls," Lashlee said afterward. "I shouldn't have put our guys in that situation. That's a coaching error on me." SMU lost 41-31, its first defeat of the season.
Everything else said SMU was the better team. Before Saturday Lashlee was 16-1 at SMU when his team gained at least 475 yards and outgained the opponent.
Jennings supplied the other half of the damage. He completed 24 of 35 for 222 yards with a 19-yard touchdown to Yamir Knight, but Kaleb Beasley intercepted him twice, and with 2:43 left Louisville's Brycen Scott punched the ball out as Jennings stretched for the end zone, a touchback that ended a drive SMU had already earned. "With those three turnovers I didn't give us no chance," Jennings said. This time every one of the giveaways came from the quarterback.
The part that was not self-inflicted is more worrying. SMU allowed 265 rushing yards at 7.2 a carry with no takeaways. "We can't let somebody run for 265 yards on us," Lashlee said, pointing to missed tackles on long runs. Run defense, pressure and takeaways were the identity SMU was trying to protect this year under a new final decision-maker. Maurice Crum Jr. and Rickey Hunley Jr. stayed on as co-coordinators, but Crum took over play-calling after Scott Symons left for the Cowboys. Nobody has confirmed who actually called Saturday's defense, so the loss is not an indictment of Crum personally. It is still the first time this defense faced a ranked conference offense, and it got run over.
The poll noticed. SMU dropped six spots to No. 22 in the AP poll released September 20, while Louisville jumped seven to No. 16.
SMU hosts Missouri State, and Casey Woods is on the other sideline
Missouri State visits Gerald J. Ford Stadium on Saturday at 9 p.m. ET on ACC Network. The model gives SMU a 94% chance to win; oddsmakers list SMU as a 34.5-point favorite. Nobody should be nervous about the result. Watch the parts of it that carry into ACC play.
The reason to actually tune in is who is coaching the other team. Casey Woods is Missouri State's head coach now. In November 2021, Jennings was committed to Missouri State out of South Oak Cliff. Two weeks later Woods was hired as SMU's offensive coordinator, flew to Dallas to watch Jennings play within days, offered him about a week after taking the job and flipped him three days after that. Four other Missouri State assistants also worked at SMU, and receivers coach Jacoby Walker was an assistant at South Oak Cliff when Jennings played there. The man who taught Jennings to protect the football will be standing across the field watching whether the lessons held.
Start with the quarterback. What SMU needs Saturday is a Jennings game with zero giveaways, at any yardage total. Knight's 19-yard touchdown, his 10th career score, was the first real sign of a lead receiver emerging from a group rebuilt almost entirely this offseason, and it came in a 222-yard passing game, with nine different Mustangs catching a ball. If Jennings is going to throw fewer risky passes, he needs a target he trusts on second-and-8. Seeing Knight get fed again, on schedule, matters more than a gaudy team number against this defense.
Kendrick Raphael is the other reason the offense should not have to force anything. He carried 24 times for a career-high 197 yards and three touchdowns at Louisville, 8.2 a pop. Missouri State gave up 267 rushing yards to Marshall. Raphael should eat.
And watch the front seven tackle. Nothing Missouri State does Saturday will prove SMU can stop an ACC running back, but a defense that just surrendered 265 yards should look violent against this opponent. Boston College, Virginia and California come to Dallas over the following weeks; the fix needs to start now.
Elsewhere Saturday
Two outside games actually move SMU's ACC championship math, and one of them is worth real attention.
Wake Forest at Louisville: root for Wake Forest
Saturday, 12 p.m. ET on ESPN. Wake Forest wins this about 19% of the time, so this is a long shot, but it is the most valuable long shot on the board. Louisville holds the head-to-head win over SMU, which means every Louisville loss from here is the only realistic way SMU climbs back over the Cardinals in the standings. If Wake Forest pulls the upset, SMU's odds of reaching the ACC title game sit near 34%; if Louisville wins, they sit near 22%. That is an 11.8-point swing riding on a game SMU has no control over, purely because Louisville is now directly ahead of the Mustangs in the league race.
Central Michigan at Miami: root for Central Michigan
The model gives Central Michigan a 2% chance to win. This result carries a 4.3 percentage-point impact on SMU's conference-title-game probability. A Central Michigan win is a long shot, so treat it as a bonus rather than something to count on.
Saturday, 6:30 p.m. ET on The CW Network. Miami wins this 98% of the time. Enjoy it if the Chippewas somehow hang around, but do not plan your evening around it. The mechanism here is different from the Louisville game, Miami is not a conference opponent SMU passes in the standings this week, it is the preseason ACC favorite whose vulnerability would reshape the whole league picture. A Central Michigan win would put SMU's title-game odds near 29% instead of about 25%. Fun to imagine, not something to count on.
Full numbers and matchup detail are in the interactive guide, and the modeling is explained in the methodology.