2023 Preview: SMU

It was a mixed bag year for SMU under first year coach Rhett Lashlee. He walked into familiar territory to take over the Mustangs after Sonny Dykes went across town to TCU and took the Frogs to the National Championship. Going 7-5 isn’t awful, but the SMU faithful will come to expect more. It was a tale of two evils, especially later in the season. When the offense outperformed, which was frequently, the defense fell off a cliff. That could be overcome. The offense not carrying this team early in the year was something that couldn’t. They lost a 1 score game to Maryland and TCU and got demolished by UCF, before losing another tight one to Cincinnati. The season flipped on it’s head the last two games of the year, getting waxed by Tulane and Memphis, with the D underperforming their expectations. In year 2, the expectations for Lashlee and gang will be much higher.

Lashlee has an offensive background so it’s little surprise that he came into new surroundings and the offense was a top 40 one in college football. SMU has quality talent and his scheme brought that out. This offense was at expectation or better in most areas vs the conference and recruiting bands. You’d like to see the running game take a further step though. The run game wasn’t much of a threat to hit a home run, which would make this offense even more dangerous. If that happens, the passing game likely takes a step forward here as well.

But the defense was quite bad. They were able to make plays when it counted judging off of their 55th in EPA/play, but they gave up far too many big plays and the defense wasn’t able to get anyone off the field, as they ranked 96th in yards to go. Teams could drive it on them, and they did it by running the ball at will. This run game defense was one of the worst in the country, and it frequently left the secondary in vulnerable spots and caused them to perform poorly against play action and give up lots of explosive plays.

Offense

Preston Stone has been tabbed the prodigal son of the Mustangs future, and it seems as though Mordecai knew as much, which is crazy to even say. Mordecai threw for 3500 yards and 33 touchdowns last year, and now took his talents to Wisconsin. SMU fans may soon realize the grass isn’t always greener. Stone will have a clear path to the starters role, but Alex Padilla comes in from Iowa to compete for the job and likely end up as the backup. Reports of Stone have always been good, but it’s very big shoes to fill.

And Stone will have to fill them without Rashee Rice, one of the best receivers in college football over the past few seasons. Last year he had 1355 yards and 10 TDs and was playing with nagging injuries. He’s simply impossible to replace. Jordan Kerley is the leading returning player in targets, followed by Moochie Dixon and RJ Maryland at the TE spot. There is a lot of talent here, before even mentioning guys like Teddy Knox and Miami transfer Key’Shawn Smith and Romello Brinson, but it will be very different without Rice and Mordecai.

But they’ll have a stellar offensive line to play behind as they find their bearings. They return all but one starter on the line and brought in 4 transfers, two of which have full seasons of starting experience in Jakai Clark and Hyrin White, who come in from Miami and Missouri.

And the running back room is absolutely loaded. They bring over Jaylan Knighton with tons of experience from Miami, and then they have Camar Wheaton a former 5 star from Alabama and added LJ Johnson, a former 5 star from Texas A&M.

Then there is the icing on the cake – Roderick Daniels is an electreic player that will likely demand touches from both the RB and the WR slot – SMU’s version of Deebo Samuels.

Defense

One thing is for sure – there will be a lot of new faces on the SMU defense.

As of this writing, SMU added 10 guys from the portal for the 2023 season. Every single one of the guys that were added got snaps last seasons. Up front they added Elijah Roberts and Jordan Miller from Miami. They got Ahmad Walker and Kobe Wilson from Liberty and Temple respectively at LB. In the secondary, they added Charles Wood from WVU, Jonathan McGill from Stanford, Cale Sanders Jr from Fresno State, Chris Megginson from Liberty, Jaelyn Davis-Robinson from LSU and Robert Rahimi from Liberty.

In the secondary, McGill, Megginson and Rahimi were all starters at their prior stops last season. Walker and Wilson were starters as well. Those guys will compete and combine with 3 returning starters who played over 550 snaps and another two guys who played over 450. This was an ugly unit in 2022, but it’s nearly impossible that they don’t improve in 2023.

Up front the Mustangs return two studs in Elijah Chatman and DeVere Levelston. Both guys have significant experience being starters for the past two seasons and are stalwarts on the inside for the Mustangs. Nelson Paul led the team in tackles for loss and sacks and he returns as well. And then of course, SMU adds two guys from Miami up front.

The LB group has by far the most turnover, with 3 of the teams 4 leading tacklers being from this unit and all 3 of them departing. They added two guys from the portal in Walker and Wilson as mentioned, and its likely one of them will be a starter. But there is still talent in this room, but they only return 15% of the snaps from last season, so they need it to develop and step in.

All in all, this defense improves, and they may not be done adding to it.

Summary

It’s hard to say this offense will improve from their rank in 2022, but they may just do it. It mostly depends on Stone, but I suspect this will be a more run focused attack to open up the pass, and boy do they have a loaded RB room. The defense will likely improve in the staffs second year with the DL and 2ndary being in a good spot. LB has holes to fill, but probably will be fine.