SMU’s offense has been building toward this moment for a while, and Kevin Jennings is the reason it feels so dangerous now.
Back in the 2023 Fenway Bowl, with Preston Stone sidelined by a broken leg, Jennings was the redshirt freshman thrust into the spotlight for a soggy 23-14 loss to Boston College. He was still more promise than product then. Three years later, he’s no longer the future of the program - he’s the center of it, and BC is heading to Texas in early October to deal with him again in a key ACC matchup.
That’s the challenge waiting for Bill O’Brien’s defense, and he didn’t soften the assessment.
"They have a really good offense," said BC head coach Bill O'Brien. "It starts with the quarterback.
He's awesome. He does a great job.
They have a good back in [Kendrick] Raphael. They have good receivers.
We have to do a great job of tackling. We have to stay competitive on the perimeter.
We have to spin the dial."
Jennings’ rise has been quick, but it hasn’t been smooth in a straight line. Lashlee didn’t fully hand him the job until three games into the 2024 season, after a timeshare to open the year.
When the breakout finally came, it came in a rush: 254 passing yards and three touchdowns in a 42-16 win over Florida State. From there, Jennings stacked up a season that put him on the league’s radar in a big way.
He finished 2024 with 3,245 passing yards, 23 touchdown passes, 354 rushing yards and five scores, good enough for Third Team All-ACC honors. SMU went 9-2 and reached the ACC Championship Game against Clemson, then got rolled 38-10 by Penn State in the College Football Playoff First Round two weeks later.
Jennings opened the next season as a Heisman Trophy candidate and one of the ACC’s top returning players, but an ankle injury clipped some of the dual-threat juice that made him so hard to defend. Even so, SMU won nine games again, Jennings threw for 3,600 yards and 26 touchdowns, and the Mustangs missed a second straight ACC title game trip after a season-ending loss to Cal sent the tiebreakers spinning.
For Boston College, the concern is obvious. Jennings can beat you from the pocket, and he can turn a broken play into a back-breaker. That’s the part Max Tucker knows well.
"I played against Kevin during my freshman year," said defensive back Max Tucker. "He's going to extend plays, so we're going to have to cover for longer."
This season, Jennings has already added 12 touchdown passes and set career highs with his first two 400-yard games. He opened with a 26-for-36, 430-yard performance against Florida State, showing off the scrambling ability that makes SMU so hard to pin down.
Then last week against Missouri State, he was even more precise, completing 85 percent of his throws with six incompletions on 39 attempts for 464 yards and three touchdowns. He also set an SMU program record with 21 straight completions against the Bears.
And Jennings isn’t working alone. SMU’s passing game is spread out across a deep group of targets.
Four receivers have at least 10 catches, and eight different pass catchers have scored touchdowns. Yamir Knight is one of the two leading receivers in yardage, while tight ends Theo Melin Ohrstrom and Randy Pittman, Jr. are the top scorers.
Nearly every option is averaging 10 yards or more per catch, and four receivers have already hauled in passes of 50 yards or longer. Jalen Cooper added to the damage against Missouri State with eight catches for 125 yards.
The ground game has its own punch, too. Kendrick Raphael broke out for 197 yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries against Louisville, and Dramecko Green gives SMU a 210-pound option to spell him when the Mustangs want some power between the tackles. Derrick McFall, the speedy wideout, even ripped off a 40-yard run in the 45-10 win over UC-Davis, which is just another reminder of how many ways this offense can hit you.
O’Brien’s message was clear: SMU can’t be defended with one look, one lane or one lapse.
"We can't stay in the same look every single play," said O'Brien. "We don't do that anyways.
We just have to do a really good job of understanding our rush lanes because once you let Kevin [Jennings] out of the pocket, you have no chance. He's going to make massive plays down the field.
So we have to do a good job of doing the best that we can, to be competitive in that area."
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Boston College heads to Dallas on Saturday to face No. 21 SMU with a 2-2 record and an early ACC test still in front of it, and the latest official depth chart offers the first real look at how the Eagles are lining up for the matchup. The chart spans offense, defense and special teams, giving a clearer sense of who is in the mix as the season settles in and the stakes rise against an SMU team that is 3-1 overall and already has a conference win.
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Boston College has enough of its own offensive firepower to make this interesting, and Mason McKenzie remains a key part of that picture after ranking sixth in the ACC. The bigger question is whether the Eagles can clean up the things that have been hurting them in recent weeks and match SMUs tempo without letting the game get away from them early. Both staffs have already spent time discussing recent performances and what needs to change, which makes this one feel less like a simple rematch and more like a test of which team can actually absorb the lessons from last week. [Read more 🡒]
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Browns message suggests the season will be judged as much by how quickly the group forms an identity as by the win total alone. Boston College finished last year with 20 victories, yet the larger lesson was that consistency and finishing sharp still needed work, especially in a league where the margin for error is thin. With so much change in the lineup, the Eagles are hoping the next step is not a rebuild but a refinement, even if the path there will look a lot different. [Read more 🡒]