Mustangs Hope to Solidify Bowl Chances Saturday

By Robby Gillespie
rgillespie@smu.edu

SMU Head Coach June Jones has achieved more than he thought he would in less than two years on the job. He came to SMU to turn around a losing program and has the Mustangs bowl eligible in just his second season.

“We’re ahead of schedule of where we thought we would be,” Jones said. “We thought it would be one more recruiting class, but the kids have bought into everything.”

The Mustangs (6-4, 5-1 C-USA) are bowl eligible for the fifth time since last making a bowl appearance in 1984, when SMU beat Notre Dame in the Aloha Bowl.

“It is a surreal feeling,” said SMU defensive back Bryan McCann. “Everything we’ve been working at over the past four years is finally coming together.”

The Mustangs have set themselves up well to make another Hawaiian bowl appearance, but SMU holds the C-USA West lead and a C-USA championship win would land them in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. Jones has asked the C-USA president to allow SMU to play in the Aloha Bowl even if they win the conference.

Before they get ahead of themselves, the Mustangs face a conference road test Saturday at Marshall (5-5, 3-3), a team fighting for bowl eligibility.

“We still have got to go out there and prepare for Marshall and play football just like we’ve been doing for the past ten weeks,” McCann said.

The Mustang defense allowed more than 600 yards on 83 plays last week against UTEP, but still managed to pull out the 35-31 win. SMU is tied for eight in the nation with 26 takeaways this year.

“You don’t go out there and count how many reps your taking,” McCann said. “You have to go out there and perform up until the double zeros are across the scoreboard.”

Freshmen quarterback Kyle Padron will start for the Mustangs for the fourth straight week looking to remain perfect as a starter. With three wins under the freshmen’s belt, Jones said Padron would have to lose the starting spot. Padron entered the Houston game after sophomore quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell went down with an injury. Mitchell is no longer injured, but Padron has impressed coach Jones.

SMU returns home to play Tulane next Saturday to finish out the season, hoping to make a bowl game.

“We are 6-4, but we’re not done, we’ve got two games left and we’re on a three game winning streak so we’re going to keep this thing rolling,” said SMU senior linebacker Chase Kennemer. “Marshall is a good team, they have a lot of athletes and a lot of size. It’s going to be a tough game.”