The SMU football team is back at Ford Stadium for the first time in a month as ACC play begins against Syracuse on Saturday.

After a 2-2 start to the season, the Mustangs are ready to turn the page to the conference season where everything starts fresh.

"If you're 4-0, it's a new season. If you're 0-4, it's a new season," SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee said. "We have an opportunity on Saturday to get a win at home, and if we can get that win we'll be 1-0 and tied for the lead in the conference just like that. So we've got to do the things this week to prepare and earn the right to win on Saturday, so that's what we're working on."

SMU entered the open week coming off a tough loss at TCU. It was the second time the Mustangs led at some point in the fourth quarter, but didn't get the win. 

That doesn't deter the team moving forward. If anything, it has refocused the Mustangs on their goal — including a regular season 17-game conference winning streak.

"I think the morale's great. We've lost two games with fourth-quarter leads," Lashlee said. "We have high expectations for ourselves, we have higher expectations than people outside the building do. Last year we were 3-1, the year before we were 2-2 at the same point, both years we played in the conference championship game."

In those losses were just little things that turned the tide of the games. Part of the work done during the bye was to clean those up, so they don't come back to get the Mustangs again during ACC play.

"I think that's the main emphasis right there, being consistent throughout everything," quarterback Kevin Jennings said. "There's plays where I look good and plays where I look bad, so just having way more better plays than bad plays, being more consistent and just bringing my team along with me. I think as long as we play our hardest and go out there and execute our best plays, nobody will be able to stop us."

Syracuse comes into the game following two very different outcomes. The Orange went to Clemson and returned with a 34-21 victory. But they lost their starting quarterback for the season. 

Last week, Syracuse lost 38-3 against Duke. But backup quarterback Rickie Collins now has a start under his belt and the last week will have been spent cleaning things up.

"It's still the same team, even if they have a different quarterback, that went on the road and was beating Clemson by 20 midway through the fourth quarter," Lashlee said. "They're a dangerous team, they've won 13 games in less than a year and a half, so we've got to attack and be aggressive, but that's kind of what we have to do regardless. It's a challenge."

The Mustangs won't take them lightly. 

"Football is football though, anybody has the talent to come out and beat a team," offensive lineman PJ Williams said. "Syracuse is a great team. I'm not going to bash them or talk down on them because they went out and beat Clemson. They had a couple upsets, they beat Miami last year, so they're coming from a good culture."

There has also been work put in by the Mustangs to take their next step. The defense knows there have been some letdowns, but it also knows the potential is there. 

So, they just kept going to work.

"Every week, every day we get better," linebacker Alexander Kilgore said. "Coach (Scott) Symons comes in here on Monday and presents us a challenge for Tuesday morning, or for the walkthrough later in the day on Monday, and we always accept it, hold our chest high, chin up and we go out and day by day, brick by brick (get better)."

Coach Lashlee noted that everything is still in front of the Mustangs. If they do what they've done the past two seasons and go undefeated in conference play and reach the conference championship game, they will give themselves a chance to be back in the College Football Playoff picture.

But that all starts with one game, Saturday.

"That's the good part, those games, you've got to learn from mistakes, you've got to learn from failure." Lashlee said. "Failure's not wrong, mistakes aren't wrong, it's when you don't learn from them that they're a problem. If we learn from them, those will help us as we now control things moving forward. We just need to get a hard-fought win somehow, someway this Saturday at home and get to 1-0 in our conference. That will help our confidence grow."