” I believe we’ll win a championship game right here once more,” stated SMU head football trainer Rhett Lashlee.
DALLAS– Coming off a historical 2024 period in which they collapsed the University Football Playoff in their very first year in the ACC, the SMU Mustangs have actually transformed the web page to 2025.
” In 2014’s group was in 2014. What they did was wonderful. It has absolutely nothing to do with this year’s group,” stated SMU head football trainer Rhett Lashlee.
With a retooled lineup and climbing assumptions, Lashlee is concentrated on something harder than an outbreak year: maintaining success and verifying the Mustangs are right here to remain.
” To take SMU back right into a power seminar back on the nationwide phase, it was enjoyable,” Lashlee confessed. “This is a new group.
While beginning quarterback Kevin Jennings returns, the Mustangs’ lineup functions 42 brand-new scholarship gamers.
” We have an excellent nucleus of leaders returning, however we have a great deal of brand-new individuals,” Lashlee stated. “However, we generated a starving team.”
The Mustangs will certainly begin the 2025 period placed No. 16 in the AP Survey. Still, Lashlee recognizes there’s hesitation in some edges of the university football globe.
” I do not stress over movie critics, however we understand that’s what they state,” Lashlee kept in mind. “We captured a great deal of individuals by shock in 2014 which’s wonderful … I make certain half individuals are forecasting us to have an excellent group, and fifty percent are forecasting us to flop. And state, ‘Oh, it was a fluke.’ As a program, we’re still needing to confirm ourselves.”
So what will it require to go back to the University Football Playoff?
” Remain healthy and balanced and manage misfortune,” Lashlee responded. “We have actually obtained the skill, however we’ll need to win challenging video games.”
In 3 years on the Hill, Lashlee has actually led SMU to back-to-back 11-win periods.
” We have actually developed a gaining society. That’s what I’m most pleased with,” Lashlee insisted. “It requires time to construct a lasting program which’s the procedure we remain in … I believe we’ll win a championship game right here once more.”