Kevin Jennings is no longer the quarterback colleges missed. At SMU, he’s become the guy the Mustangs have built everything around.
That wasn’t obvious back in high school, when Jennings was still trying to prove he belonged on a Division I field. He played his junior year at South Oak Cliff High School in Texas, where head coach Jason Todd watched him seize a two-minute drill late in a playoff game against Frisco High School and never blink.
“That junior year playoff game is when it clicked for me,” Todd said.
Jennings showed that same poise in another playoff game against Lovejoy High School, when Todd was on one sideline and SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee was in the bleachers - not even there for Jennings. Lashlee was evaluating the opponent on the first day of his new job, while Jennings was trying to impress Missouri State, the only Division I school that had offered him.
Lashlee ended up finding his quarterback anyway. Jennings committed to SMU on Dec. 12, 2021, and five years later he’s sitting in the thick of the Heisman conversation.
He’s closing in on 10,000 career passing yards, has thrown for 2,062 yards this season, ranks 14th nationally in passing yards, has 19 touchdown passes tied for sixth in the country, and is completing 72.6% of his throws, which sits inside the top 10. SMU, behind that production, is ranked 19th nationally heading into Saturday’s trip to Syracuse.
“It wasn’t about the stats he had,” Todd said. “We need to win, and he needs to show people that he’s a winner.”
Todd saw the raw talent right away when Jennings arrived at South Oak Cliff. The arm strength was obvious.
So was the confidence. Todd said Jennings could make any throw from any arm angle under any pressure, and Tedrick Williams, who backed him up at quarterback, remembers Jennings uncorking 60-yard go balls in practice.
South Oak Cliff gave Jennings room to expand his game instead of boxing him in. Todd and his staff pushed him to get more comfortable taking control, and by the spring, Jennings was calling his own plays before they’d break down the decisions afterward.
“We had to let him play and stop trying to overcoach him at times,” Todd said. “I took the coaching out. Once he took that ownership, the offense just took off going into his senior year.”
That freedom changed the offense, too. South Oak Cliff moved into a choice-based passing game that sharpened Jennings’ ability to read both receivers and defenses.
He threw for about 1,300 yards as a junior and then exploded for 2,884 as a senior. Todd said Jennings could have piled up even more if he had played the second half of blowouts.
Williams, now a redshirt junior at McMurry University after moving to running back, saw something else in those huddles: calm. Jennings didn’t get rattled after mistakes and kept his focus locked on the next snap.
“No moment is too big for him,” Williams said.
That steadiness helped South Oak Cliff win the University Interscholastic League Class 5A Division II Texas state title in 2021, the first state championship for a Dallas team in more than 60 years. Even with that success, Jennings still didn’t have many college choices.
He said some schools viewed him as undersized and wanted him at wide receiver or cornerback. Missouri State was his only Division I offer.
Then SMU changed everything.
Jennings later told Adam Breneman on Next Up in April that Lashlee’s presence at that Lovejoy game mattered more than anyone knew.
“If he didn’t come to that game, I’d be balling at Missouri State,” Jennings said.
Now he owns SMU’s career records with 9,771 passing yards and 74 passing touchdowns, and he’s become the face of the school’s Heisman push, branded “K7NG OF DALLAS.” The story around him has long been that he was overlooked. The people who coached and played with him in high school tell a different version: one about a quarterback who was trusted to run the show.
That same trust has followed him to SMU, even after a redshirt freshman year.
“They just let me be me,” Jennings said.
SMU quarterbacks coach D’Eriq King said on Oct. 8 that his job is less about hammering Jennings over turnovers and more about helping him clean up mistakes and move past failure. Jennings still has one high-school habit he’s working to fix - knowing when to get rid of the ball.
Even after SMU’s 23-13 win over Virginia on Oct. 17, Jennings acknowledged that part of his game still needs work.
“That’s just me maturing,” Jennings said.
Todd believes Jennings has NFL ability, though he also said a lot will depend on where Jennings ends up. Either way, Todd said Jennings “will find his footing.”
For now, SMU doesn’t need Jennings to look to the sideline. The staff trusts him, he trusts them, and those deep shots - the same 60-yard balls he was launching in practice years ago - are still part of the package. The “K7NG OF DALLAS” run is alive and well.
“You think you can make every throw with an arm like his,” Todd said.
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