Marques White recorded three of SMU's five sacks against Boston College, and on one of those three sacks he knocked the ball loose, with Aakil Washington recovering, the grad transfer defensive end filling a bigger job after Ira Singleton IV's season-ending injury. Those sacks came with a season-high 14 tackles for loss, with Boston College held to 3.5 yards per carry, and Rhett Lashlee called it the defense's most complete game, start to finish. SMU won 25-16 at home. It needed all of that, because the offense managed a season-low 218 total yards and Boston College actually outgained the Mustangs 322-218.
That result put SMU at 4-1 overall and 2-1 in the ACC, a ninth straight conference win at home. It also matters more than a typical mid-October win because of what preceded it. Scott Symons left for the Dallas Cowboys, and Maurice Crum Jr. and Rickey Hunley Jr. stayed on as co-defensive coordinators with Crum taking over the play-calling. SMU was trying to keep a defense that had become a program strength while changing the person making the final decision on it. Boston College is the best evidence yet that the handoff worked.
Two caveats a fan should keep in mind. The first is that nobody has actually confirmed who calls it. SMU's staff directory lists Crum as the play caller; a game-specific SMU On SI report earlier this season said Hunley called the defense against Florida State, and no team statement has reconciled the two. Crum was promoted to defensive play caller in February 2026 after previously serving as SMU's linebackers coach. So the unit is clearly playing well; crediting one coach for it remains a leap.
The second is Louisville. Two weeks before this, the Cardinals ran for 265 yards at 7.2 a carry against this same defense, with no takeaways, and Lashlee said flatly that SMU can't let somebody run for 265 yards on it. One middling opponent held to 3.5 per carry does not erase that. Both games count, and the Cardinals' 265 rushing yards are still the harder one to explain away.
Which is why Virginia, in Week 7, is the next chance to see whether this defense can hold up against a run game that can hurt it, and why the bye lands at a useful spot. SMU's one bye is October 10, before a run of Virginia, California and Syracuse. The Mustangs are favored in all three. The schedule's real bill comes due in November with back-to-back trips to Notre Dame and Stanford.
Keep the broader standard in view. SMU opened the year picked second in the ACC media poll behind Miami, with six first-place votes. This was supposed to be a title team. The Louisville loss, which came against a Louisville club also picked in the ACC's top three and which handed the Cardinals their first-ever win in the series, is still the one blemish on the league ledger, and SMU's conference-title-game odds sit at 32 percent. Nothing this week changes that directly. But four ACC results can nudge it.
North Carolina at Pittsburgh: root for North Carolina
The model gives North Carolina a 14% chance to win.
The most valuable outcome on the board and the least likely. Pittsburgh is ranked and a heavy home favorite; North Carolina wins this about 14 percent of the time. A Tar Heels upset would put a loss on a direct rival for the title-game field and leave SMU's conference-championship odds near 39 percent instead of about 31 percent. A swing of roughly 7.6 points. Fun to pull for on Saturday morning. Not something to plan around.
Duke at Georgia Tech: root for Georgia Tech
The model gives Georgia Tech a 38% chance to win.
Better odds, nearly as much value. Georgia Tech is the home underdog at about 38 percent, and a Yellow Jackets win drops a conference loss on Duke. That means roughly 35 percent title-game odds for SMU if Georgia Tech holds serve, about 30 percent if Duke wins. Call it 4.7 points, and the likeliest single place for SMU fans to gain ground this week.
Florida State at Louisville: root for Florida State
The model gives Florida State a 37% chance to win.
Louisville is the team that beat SMU, and the only ACC opponent that has. A Florida State road win, about a 37 percent proposition, puts a league loss back on the Cardinals and moves SMU's title-game number from roughly 31 to 34 percent. Worth about 2.3 points, modest, but satisfying.
Wake Forest at NC State: root for NC State
The model gives NC State a 41% chance to win.
NC State is a home underdog at about 41 percent, and a Wolfpack win is worth around 1.9 points of title-game odds by adding a loss to Wake Forest. Wake Forest is the one team on this list SMU still gets to play, in Dallas in November, and the Mustangs would rather host a Wake Forest team that already has league losses on it.
Add it up and it's a bye week with a little texture. There is a defense that just played its best football of the season, a question about who deserves the credit that Virginia will start to answer, and four conference games that each move the title-game number a little. Full numbers are in the interactive guide, and the modeling is explained in the methodology.