SMU gets a quick shot at turning the page Friday night, and the assignment is a tricky one. The Mustangs are back home in Dallas to face Virginia Tech in an ACC matchup that carries plenty of weight for both teams, even if neither cracked the first College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday.
For SMU, the mood is shaped by what happened a week ago. The Mustangs fell 30-27 at Syracuse on Oct. 31, a loss that ended a four-game winning streak and came in brutal fashion: Syracuse hit a deciding touchdown pass with 17 seconds left after SMU had climbed out of a 20-10 halftime hole and grabbed a 27-20 lead with 9:04 remaining.
Kevin Jennings was sharp in defeat, completing 29 of 36 passes for 352 yards and two touchdowns, while Kendrick Raphael punched in a 13-yard scoring run that briefly put SMU in front. The damage came up front, where the Mustangs were sacked six times after allowing only six combined sacks through their first seven games.
“We expect to win, and losing is never OK,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said. “But it is life, and how we respond is important.
We responded well earlier this year when we had a disappointment. Knowing the guys the way I know them, they're gonna respond really well.”
The Mustangs enter the weekend at 6-2 overall and 4-2 in the ACC, sitting fourth in the league standings. Their path still includes two teams currently above them, with No.
16 Wake Forest coming to Dallas on Nov. 14 and No. 11 Notre Dame waiting on Nov.
- Lashlee made it clear SMU is still in the fight, even if the margin for error has disappeared.
“We're gonna compete these last four or five weeks and see where it lands us,” Lashlee said. “We're no longer in control of everything, but we're also not out of anything. So we put ourselves in this position, we gotta dig our way out.”
Virginia Tech arrives with its own momentum. The Hokies are 6-2 overall and 3-2 in the ACC after a bye week, and they’re coming off a 20-16 win at Clemson on Oct.
- Ethan Grunkemeyer threw for 156 yards and two touchdowns in that victory, including the go-ahead score to Luke Reynolds with 1:44 left.
It was Virginia Tech’s second straight win.
The Hokies’ two defeats have been razor-thin, both coming by a combined seven points - one at home against then-undefeated Pittsburgh and the other at California. In each case, the game was decided in the final 18 seconds.
A big reason Virginia Tech has stayed in the mix is the way its defense has tightened up, and that unit is about to get a major test against SMU’s offense. Coach James Franklin said Monday that the improvement has come from several places working together.
“The biggest thing is pre-snap confidence and communication of getting all 11 guys on the same page,” Franklin said Monday. “Part of that is (the defense) just getting more comfortable.
Part of that is us narrowing the package down a little bit. A combination of all those things have been helpful, specifically on the back end.”
The Hokies still have No. 1 Miami on the schedule for Nov. 21, followed by their annual rivalry game against Virginia in Blacksburg on Nov. 28.
Friday’s meeting is the first between SMU and Virginia Tech since 1974. The Mustangs hold a 2-1 edge in the all-time series.
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