Dec 3 | Football
With a spot in the ACC championship game already secured, it would have been easy for the SMU football team to take its foot off the gas.
But the Mustangs had no intentions of letting up. They jumped out to a 21-0 lead and finished things off with a 17-point fourth quarter to beat Cal 38-6.
SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee has preached finishing during his three seasons leading the Mustangs. SMU has now won nine straight games in the month of November. This year, those games were even more important.
"Clinching and closing is the hardest thing in sports," Lashlee said. "Doesn't matter what sport. The easy analogy is, the last three outs in baseball (are) the hardest three outs. I mean, we've been playing in the playoffs for like the last six weeks. Until this week, we had to win every game just to get into the conference championship game."
The Mustangs rose to No. 9 in all three polls last week, moving into the College Football Playoff bracket for the first time. Even though the Mustangs were already in their second straight conference title game and could clinch an automatic playoff berth, they still wanted to end the regular season with a win.
"I think it shows their maturity, they wanted to finish," Lashlee said. "We talked about attacking the finish this week. I think we're now 11-1 in November these three years. We wanted to finish well. We wanted to go 8-0 (in the ACC). We wanted to win the regular season outright and not share it. … They've not flinched week after week."
That undefeated conference mark is special. The Mustangs became just the sixth program in ACC history to go at least 8-0 in conference play and it was the first time they have gone back-to-back seasons undefeated and untied in conference play in program history.
"It was really important just being undefeated in the conference," senior running back Brashard Smith said. "We were big on that. We came in on a mission."
When SMU went undefeated in the American Athletic Conference last season and went on to win the conference title, it ended a 40-year drought. This year was going to be a completely different challenge, moving into a power conference.
Being able to do it again is special.
"I think it kind of really hasn't hit us," senior safety Jonathan McGill said. "Once you start winning a lot of games, you get accustomed to winning, right? … Really just valuing winning, valuing the talent that we have. We knew coming into the season we had a really talented team. We knew we could get to this point and get into this conference championship. It just took the culmination of players, with scheme and really just how we embraced each other as a family."
Plenty has been made already about what SMU has accomplished so far this season. The Mustangs are the first program to start better than 1-1 when making the move up to a power conference and are the first to make the conference championship game.
Things didn't get off to a great start as the Mustangs had to come back for a victory at Nevada and suffered their only loss of the season against BYU. But since then, they are undefeated, nine straight wins, eight in conference, and have a chance to claim a playoff spot with another.
When preparing for the move up, Lashlee looked at what hadn't worked for teams when making the jump. He then tried to fill those holes and put together something that would work.
"I didn't love school, but history was my favorite subject," Lashlee said. "I like knowing what's happened and what's been done. Then to try to prepare our guys for something new, that none of us had experienced here."
There will be plenty of debates about whether SMU deserves to be in the playoff no matter what happens in Charlotte. Players like McGill aren't worried about the outside noise. They are focused on winning the ACC title and clinching their spot.
Lashlee knows it's not his call either, though he feels SMU's resume matches up against teams many are saying will be in the playoff no matter what. He thanked the seniors for what they've meant to this program whether they've been here for five seasons or just one.
But one conversation stood out that summed up the Mustangs thought process.
"I think I walked to Junior, Roderick Daniels, on the sidelines late in the game and told him it was a pleasure watching him play on this field," Lashlee said. "He said, 'Coach, we're not done yet.' … We're still in it. We've got a big game coming up this week and then, hopefully, we're playing for more down the road after that as well."
