Football is back.
Yes, you read that correctly. Just over two weeks after Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas, the SMU Mustangs kicked off spring practice ahead of their debut season in the ACC.
“It’s arguably the most exciting time in our school’s history, from an athletic standpoint, just coming off of a championship season, going to the ACC, and we’ve got a brand new facility that we’re going to move into right when the season starts,” head coach Rhett Lashlee told the media after practice. “… It’s just a lot of excitement, and you only get one opportunity to do something for the first time. With a lot of returning guys, I think they’re excited about the schedule and the opportunity to play in the ACC and to play on that stage. They know we’ve got a big challenge ahead of us. … It’s a great step for our school and for our program.”
The Mustangs return several players from last season’s 11-win American Athletic Conference champion team and seem to have picked up right where they left off, even with the additions of 10 promising freshmen and a group of experienced transfers.
“We do have some transfers and some high school guys,” Lashlee explained. “So there are some new faces, but it just didn’t feel like day one. It felt like going into year three. … We know how to practice, and you can only tell so much in helmets, but I did think guys flew around, and we had some good energy [and] good competition.”
There is plenty of Power Five (now Power Four) experience on the team, as SMU added 12 transfers from power programs this offseason, including two from the ACC, and has a coaching staff familiar with the conference from Lashlee’s days at the University of Miami, including former Houston and Miami star quarterback D’Eriq King, now the quarterbacks coach for the Mustangs.
“I enjoyed getting the opportunity to coach him. He’s a winner. He’s always calm,” Lashlee said of King. “That’s why he was such a great quarterback. I think he’s a really steady presence for our quarterbacks. He relates well to them. He’s played in our system, he’s now coaching in it, and he knows a lot of the things these guys have been through, so to have a calming voice, who’s been where you are and, and probably a little more relatable, he’s been awesome. He’s great with our staff, and we’re excited we got him.”
The players who have been with the program for multiple seasons are also excited to get going in the new conference, and it was noticeable on Tuesday.
“We had great energy, and everybody is just leveling up their game so much to where you start where you left off,” offensive lineman Justin Osborne told the media. “That’s great because we’re going to become a great team doing that.”
