There has been a sense of cautious optimism around the SMU football program all season, and the team has one of its biggest goals in front of it when it hosts Navy this weekend.
With a win on Saturday over the Midshipmen, the Mustangs would clinch a spot in the American Athletic Conference Championship against the winner of Friday’s UTSA-Tulane game, giving the program its first conference title game appearance since losing the 2010 Conference USA Championship to UCF and a chance to win its first conference championship since 1984.
“We’ve just got to take it one game at a time,” defensive coordinator Scott Symons told the media on Tuesday. “Our number is one. This is the next game, and we’ve got to put our best foot forward and try to finish the regular season the right way.”
The media picked SMU to finish third in the conference during the preseason, behind defending AAC champion Tulane and back-to-back defending Conference USA champion UTSA, a newcomer to the American this season. Now, a week from conference championship weekend, the three AAC front runners find themselves in a three-way tie for first place.
Despite the optimism around the program, the season-long message has been to concentrate week-by-week on the task at hand and take each game as it comes.
“You can’t get where you want to get if you don’t take care of the present moment,” SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee told the media this week. “… This is just as big a game as the one before and the next one. It gets built up, but a big game in Week Three is just as big as a big game in Week 12 in the grand scheme of things. It’s just the order it goes in and how the season unfolds make games seem bigger than they appear.”
“… We’ve tried really hard with mental toughness training and things we try to do to stay present for all of us,” he added. “Credit our guys. They’ve done a nice job showing up. We don’t always play our best, but they’ve shown up. They’ve been able to focus on the moment and the task at hand, and they’ll have to do it again this week.”
SMU kept its championship hopes alive with a four-point win on the road against Memphis last week, narrowing the AAC title chase to just three teams, but Navy presents a different challenge with a unique offense.
The military academies tend to run older offensive schemes designed to eat the clock and allow opponents little time to operate. The Mustangs struggled to stop Navy’s offense last season, allowing over 500 yards and needing a 20-point fourth quarter to hold on for a 40-34 win.
While the Midshipmen have a slightly altered offensive scheme under a new offensive coordinator this season, Symons believes his unit must keep the same disciplines in mind.
“Our guys know what the situation is,” Symons said. “We’ve gotten to where this game really matters more than any season game, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to play it one play at a time. … It’s got to be a one-play focus, start to finish. Don’t let the moment be too big, and just play the next play. If we do that, we’ll give ourselves a chance to hopefully be successful.”
SMU (9-2, 7-0 in the AAC) and Navy (5-5, 4-3) will play at 11 a.m. CT on Saturday at SMU’s Gerald J. Ford Stadium. The Mustangs will host the AAC Championship game with a win and a Tulane loss. If SMU and Tulane both win, the Mustangs will travel to New Orleans, while an SMU loss combined with a UTSA win would eliminate the Mustangs from the championship picture.
