SMU has laid out the roadmap for a major conference jump in its first ACC season

UNIVERSITY PARK — College football — a sport now dominated by conference realignment, the transfer portal, name, image and likeness and a completely overhauled postseason system — is in the midst of an era of the unpredictable, the unpredictable and the untraveled. It has brought a handful of seismic changes in just a few years. A landscape has emerged that even the smartest forecasters are unable to comprehend the full implications of.

And perhaps most importantly, there are few roadmaps left for colleges and universities to navigate.

SMU is building one.

In their first season in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Mustangs made the early jump from the Group of Five into a power conference better than any other team before. Their roster of homegrown talent and outside imports dispatched a previously undefeated Pitt team nationally in front of a sellout crowd Saturday at Gerald J. Ford Stadium. They control their own destiny as far as the ACC Championship Game is concerned. They will have serious interest in Tuesday's first College Football Playoff rankings.

That's the kind of thing big programs do.

“SMU, our program, belongs at this level,” head coach Rhett Lashlee said Saturday after the Mustangs’ 48-25 win over Pitt. “Our program has the ability to compete at a high level at this level – something we all believed in … but we had to do it.”

A higher level than any of their colleagues achieved in their first year this level, no less. The No. 20 Mustangs (8-1, 5-0 ACC) are the first Group of Five transplants to start league play better than 1-1 in their first season in a power conference. Their loss to the Panthers (7-1, 3-1) – in which the Mustangs led by 28 points at halftime and by as many as 31 points in the second half – made SMU one of two teams tied in ACC play alongside No . 5Miami.

“It feels good,” SMU running back Brashard Smith, a former Hurricane himself, said with a grin.

Looks good too. Smith scored twice – once on a 71-yard breakaway run and again on an 18-yard sprinter – to fuel an SMU total of 467 yards of offense against one of the conference's best defenses. The Mustangs' defense, led by Liberty transfer Ahmad Walker (2.5 tackles for loss), Arlington native Ahmad Moses (10 tackles) and Miami transfer Jahfari Harvey (who had one of SMU's three sacks), held held the Panthers to three points in the first half and only one third down conversion in the first two quarters.

Quarterback Kevin Jennings, who received high praise from former Alabama coach Nick Saban on ESPN's “College GameDay” on Saturday morning, passed for a turnover-free 306 yards and two touchdowns. It was a rebound from his first-ever hiccup last week against Duke, when he had five turnovers.

“He’s the greatest coach to ever do this,” Lashlee said of Saban, who said Jennings may be the most underrated player in the country. “Looks like he knows what he’s talking about, to me that’s the way Kevin played tonight.”

Aptly nicknamed “The Silent Assassin” in South Oak Cliff, Jennings displayed as much personality as his pseudonym would allow.

“It honestly means a lot,” Jennings said. “Some legend says that about me. It was a surreal moment, I had to show it to all my friends around me. I was very excited at that moment…he wasn’t wrong.”

Most of the GameDay crew also didn't pick SMU to win on Saturday. Or those who fought to ensure that the Mustangs could rejoin a power conference after decades in exile. Speaking of which: The original Pony Express was actually among the 34,648 visitors on Saturday. Craig James and Eric Dickerson were on the SMU sidelines, and the 1983 team that beat Pitt in the Cotton Bowl was also honored.

Dickerson spoke to the team Friday evening. On Saturday, alum Bryson DeChambeau — who, fittingly, drove a Mustang onto the field with his U.S. Open trophy in tow — took part in the pregame coin toss. He even brought his hardware into a student area, which has helped Ford Stadium host three of its 10 highest-attended games this season alone.

“All of this is a big deal, but it’s what’s special about SMU,” Lashlee said. “It’s good to deliver something at this moment.”

The Mustangs somehow figured out how to do this.

“Honestly, it just feels good,” Walker said. “It's just bringing joy back to the alumni who were here a while ago, seeing the success that they had and just bringing that feeling back. It feels really good.”

Mustangs on the rise: See photos from SMU's big ACC win

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