Rhett Lashlee on Penn State crowd: 'We got what we expected'

SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee knew what was coming when the Mustangs traveled to Penn State for the College Football Playoff.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t nearly enough for SMU to compete with the Nittany Lions Saturday, losing 38-10. Lashlee’s crew had opportunities early, but turnovers and a goose egg on the board in the first half put them in a hole.

Get your team’s official College Football Playoff watch from AXIA by CLICKING HERE: “Watches that tell so much more than time”

One they couldn’t climb out of.

“Yeah, we got what we expected,” Lashlee said. “I don’t think we burned time-outs because of the crowd per se but I thought 95% of the game we handled the crowd great. First half we didn’t have any issues. It was that third quarter we got down on the endzone where the student section was and I think we had the ball inside the five two different times. We settled for a field goal on one. We missed a field goal on the other. You know, I think when you couple that with the drive in the first half, we had the ball probably inside the 10 or 15 twice, three time, excuse me, and had an interception, a field goal and a missed field goal. The crowd was definitely a factor there, and, you know, it showed. 

“We can’t — if we just snap the ball and hand it off, we have some good things and we go backwards and now you get to second and third and goal from the 9, the 11, those are low percentage no matter who you’re playing. I think that’s when it affected us the most, was that third quarter going into the endzone where the student section was, and that’s what college football’s all about. We got to handle that better.”

Rhett Lashlee knew what was coming

Lashlee made it clear that the final score was totally indicative of the game. Although, it’d be hard to convince a lot of people of that fact.

“I’m glad you said that because that’s what’s frustrating,” Lashlee said. “People are going to see the scoreboard, that’s it, 38-10, or they’re going to see the halftime score and some of those things and say things like, well, they shouldn’t have been in. They don’t belong. But to your point, it was 14-0. We had two pick sixes and some other things we just talked about the fourth and one. 

“We had our opportunities. We don’t have anybody to blame but ourselves. We had our opportunities to make it the game it should have been, which to me was going to be a really good defensive struggle that someone in the low 20s won and we didn’t do that. We didn’t do that because offensively, not only did we turn the ball over, we turned the ball over and let them get on the scoreboard and I don’t know what the final number is because I haven’t been able to see the stats if they were 21 or 24 points off turnovers but that’s a lot.”

SMU finished the season 11-3 as the ACC runner up and College Football Playoff participant under Lashlee.