The SMU football team is one step closer to the start of the 2024 season as it opened fall camp on Wednesday morning.

Exactly one month before traveling to Nevada for the Week 0 contest the Mustangs put on the helmets for the first time since spring. With the game a week earlier this season, that meant fall camp got an early start too.

"It's weird being a week left in July and we're practicing. Normally it's the last day of July, first day of August," SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee said. "And normally I don't have to come straight from THSCA and a team meeting that night. I know this, we don't have to sit around waiting. It's here. We're getting to start building our team. One thing that's kind of unique, we're going to get an extra week before school starts."

No team is ready to go out and play after one day of camp, but Lashlee liked the way the team came out ready to go. As the practices stack on each other, that will happen as long as the focus stays the same.

"I thought our intentions were good. It's just good to be out here," Lashlee said. "It's good to be out, first day trying to form our new team. Helmets (only), but intentions were good. You could tell we're in great shape, we didn't have guys falling out and cramping up. At the same time, we're not in football shape, you could tell. We went 14 periods, somewhere around period 8 or 9, 10 coming out of our break, you could just tell guys were trying to fight through it but they were sluggish and that's normal."

But that didn't just happen overnight though. It has been a part of the team's offseason.

"I think we're in a good spot. I think we got a lot of guys that's been around for a long time," senior safety Jonathan McGill said. "We had some intentionality in the summer. I felt like our player-led workouts and player-led practices and stuff like that went smooth. I feel like we're an older team, got some good senior leadership at every single position you could think of. The young guys and the guys that came in even brought a veteran presence."

Although the new schedule does put a wrench into some of his plans off the field.

"My birthday is actually Sunday, July 28, and I usually have three to five days off," McGill said. "So, usually do something for my birthday, but I think we've got some family fun stuff that we've got to do. So it will be the first time (having camp this year)."

McGill added that he was excited though and ready to be back on the field. That was a common theme from the opening day of camp with the season coming.

That also means there are no days off. There has to be a certain approach, even on the first day. That's what sixth-year receiver Jake Bailey took into Wednesday's practice.

"My two emphases, one was running through the ball, catching everything running through," Bailey said. "I have a tendency to kind of jump catch when I don't have to. So, today was a big emphasis on running through the ball, staying on the ground and then getting loose after that. And then secondly was late hands. Running, getting that good lean on the deep ball and then throwing those hands out late. Not running with the hands out, giving the DB a chance to punch through. So those are my two emphases today. I was happy with them. I think I worked them well. … So I was proud of it today."

It was the first practice in about eight months for quarterback Preston Stone. He suffered a leg injury late in the first half of the Navy game on Nov. 25, 2023, and wasn't cleared for full activity until the final day of spring.

Lashlee noted that Stone had a strong summer and carried it over to the field on Wednesday.

"I felt like his confidence was high coming into practice and health is not an issue," Lashlee said. "I don't think he worries about it. We don't worry about it. You can tell today, in some areas, he was rusty. But I mean, again, he hasn't truly practiced since the Navy week last year. It was good to get him out there. I thought he looked comfortable. It's nothing we're concerned about at all. He's not limited in anything."

The two biggest position battles this fall camp, though, come at offensive line and cornerback. There are a lot of new faces and returners vying for playing time. It's something Lashlee, his coordinators and position coaches will be watching throughout camp.

"In a perfect world, Aug. 10 is two weeks from our first game. That'll be our last kind of game-like scrimmage situation, that's physical anyways," Lashlee said. "You would love to come out of that knowing hey, we're 15 practice in, two weeks in, and go, 'We have a lot of those things decided at least for Game 1.' Or narrow it down and know these guys are competing and play their way through it."

There is still a lot of time between Wednesday and that Aug. 10 practice though and plenty to work on.

"We were sloppy and some things," Lashlee said. "We had too many offsides, too many false starts, even though it's Day 1. I thought defense was good, forced a lot of turnovers. That was a positive. It's Day 1, like we just told them, success is a long journey. We're looking for consistency of performance. But I like their intentions today for Day 1."

Now it is about carrying it into Day 2, then Day 3 and so on. That's how practices build and the team gets in position to have success in Reno and beyond.

"We'll get into situations a lot faster, third downs and red zones and those end-of-game scenarios," Lashlee said. "The main thing is getting it in so then you can just repeat it for a few weeks and try to get that consistency down and try to see who can maintain their high performance. Look, we've got to have a physical camp. And physical doesn't mean you've got to tackle live all the time, doesn't mean we got to go two and a half hours every day, but when we go a lot of team reps, a lot of physicality. 

"We've got to stop the run, run the football and be in a lot of games situations. Because if we're able to play well and win games like we hope to, we're going to win a lot of games late third, fourth quarter. And so we got to be comfortable in those situations. That's the things, that on top of the obvious normal things, that we'll be focusing on."