Rhett Lashlee addresses Brandon Crossley's ejection in SMU's win vs. Nevada

The SMU Mustangs struggled early in their opening game against the Nevada Wolf Pack. Along the way, head coach Rhett Lashlee saw his team get frustrated and commit several unsportsmanlike penalties.

Among the penalties in the game were an unsportsmanlike for wide receiver Jordan Hudson, who swung his arm at a player, and Brandon Crossley, who was ejected for spitting on an opponent. Those were issues that Lashlee addressed following the game, arguing that’s not who SMU is as a team.

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“I don’t love it at all,” Rhett Lashlee said. “It’s not who we are. It’s not who we want to be. So, I will look at the film. I know early in the game Jordan Hudson got spit on. So, then he pushed the guy in the helmet back, which he can’t do. So, they called a flag on him and the other side too. It’s really hard for guys to control their emotions when they get spit on, but they got to. Then, same thing later again. I’ll have to see the clip.”

The penalties did get out of control for SMU. The Mustangs had 11 penalties for 125 yards. That was the same number of penalties as Nevada but the Wolf Pack only had 81 yards in penalties comparatively. It was an issue that nearly led to an upset.

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“Officials make calls and we got to live with it and they do a good job running the game,” Lashlee said. “So, we’ll look at the film where we can be more disciplined, where we can do a better job. That’s not who we want to be so anything we did out of character will be addressed and guys will go on the field that are gonna represent SMU the right way.” 

Brandon Crossley is now in his fifth college season and is going to be a key player for SMU throughout the season. However, he got ejected for what the game’s referees described as spitting on an opponent.

Notably, despite the claim that Hudson was spit on, the referees didn’t see that and didn’t eject anyone on Nevada. So, Lashlee and SMU had to live with how the game was called in the end.

“I don’t know. The call was made and we respect it. Brandon feels like it happened the other way, but he’s out of the game because whatever we did to put ourselves in a position to where that could be thought of, that’s on us. It cost us him and it cost our team,” Lashlee said. 

“We got to be better than that. We’ve got to have composure. There’s a difference between playing with passion and emotion. We were emotional a lot tonight. We got to be passionate, big difference.”

In the end, SMU got a win in its first game as a member of the ACC. However, it was closer than expected and took a fourth-quarter comeback to get there.