The SMU football team had its best season in 40 years and now faces the difficult task of becoming a Power Four program as it heads to the ACC for the upcoming season and beyond.
The Mustangs will face many challenges adjusting to the new conference, yet they are confident they can compete with the championship culture they built under their current coaching staff.
“Every coach’s dream is to get to the point where it is a player-led team,” offensive coordinator Casey Woods told The Dallas Express after Thursday’s practice. “Lead them long enough until they can lead themselves, and then you just got to put them in positions to compete, keep bringing the right kind of people into the organization, challenge the leaders, and develop the leaders to be vocal enough to carry on the culture that Coach Lashlee has established here.”
Expectations could be high after the tremendous success of last year’s team, but moving into a new conference always has its adjustment periods. SMU has plenty of players returning from last season’s team to help lead the way in all phases of the game, but there are also enough newcomers that the approach to the season has to remain gradual.
“It’s the formation seed of a new team, which is really neat and exciting,” Woods explained to the media. “It’s a little different approach this year because you’ve got a championship mindset, right? You’ve got guys that know what it’s like to play in big games, win big games, and compete. That’s been fun to watch. I think there’s an air of professionalism here that, now that we’re in year three, is nice to be able to get back in front of.”
One of the returning players taking on a leadership role on the defense is safety Jonathan McGill, a 12-game starter and team captain who recorded the fourth most tackles on the team a season ago. After the overall success of last season was partially tainted by a bowl game loss to Boston College, now a fellow ACC foe, the fifth-year senior is eager to help build the team to the next level by continuing to do the little things right.
“I think that was what separated us last year,” McGill told The Dallas Express on Thursday. “We had really good attention to detail and things like that. In terms of taking that and moving forward, [it’s] keeping that mentality but also understanding we’ve kind of got that chip on our shoulder going to a new conference. Coming from the American, teams might think, based on our last performance against Boston College, we’re not cut out for it. So having that underdog mentality as we’re going to this next conference is definitely something that’s on our mind.”
Both returning and new players have embraced the challenges ahead of them and the culture the program instills. The biggest challenge will be maintaining the foundation they have built as a new chapter begins.
“It’s a fun challenge once you kind of get it maintained right here, and you see that the players are really bought into what it is that we’re doing,” Woods explained. “… The things that you say, all of a sudden, you hear them saying to each other. That’s when you’ve really got something cooking, and I think that will help us accelerate what we need to do as far as development. Even though we have a long way to go, that kind of speaks back to the culture and where we’re at from the professionalism and the championship standard standpoint at this point in the year.”
We’ll see how quickly the culture allows the Mustangs to take on that challenge, adapt, and succeed this fall.
