Rhett Lashlee evaluates SMU's QB rotation after Week 0 victory over Nevada

As expected, Preston Stone was SMU‘s starting quarterback in the Mustangs’ nail-biting 29-24 win over Nevada on Saturday. However, After Stone’s first two drives ended in an interception and a punt, SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee subbed in QB2 Kevin Jennings.

After a turnover on downs on his first drive, Jennings recovered and led the Mustangs to the end zone on his second series behind center. Alas, Jennings didn’t receive another opportunity to pile on the points.

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After Jennings led SMU down the field, Lashlee took him out and gave Stone another chance. Stone stayed in the rest of the game, leading SMU to victory. After the game, Lashlee pulled back the curtain on his decision and delved into SMU’s balance at QB.

“Preston won the starting job. He’s our starter, but both guys are gonna play and they deserve to play,” Lashlee said. “Our plan all along, I know we didn’t share it with y’all, was Kevin was gonna play the third and fourth series. That’s fair to him.

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“Let Preston start the game and then Kevin can see it, those two drives and get a feel for what the defense is doing. Then Preston gets to come off and see the defense a little and Kevin gets to come in and not have one drive, he’s got two because sometimes as a quarterback, ‘I got one drive,’ you press and you try to do more than you need to do.

“Then we were gonna put Preston back in the fifth series and go from there and see how the game went. Definitely, if you’d asked me, I would have thought we’d have played Kevin more. He had our only touchdown drive in the first half, did a great job and he’s gonna continue to play.”

In Jennings’ limited time on the field, he completed 4-of-his-5 pass attempts for 54 total yards. In comparison, Stone connected on 17-of-his-30 pass attempts, totaling 254 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

When Stone came back into the game for SMU’s fifth offensive series, Nevada held a 10-7 lead. The Wolf Pack eventually extended their lead to 24-13 before the Mustangs rattled off 16 unanswered points. Rhett Lashlee was seemingly happy with Stone’s performance down the stretch.

“You got to go with someone and like I said, he earned the starting job,” Lashlee said. “He’s got the experience so we stuck with him and it worked out, but it had nothing to do with us not fully believing in Kevin. You’re gonna see more of Kevin.

“The game obviously went in a direction that made it hard. When you’re having limited options, if you start going back and forth, you don’t let either guy get in a rhythm, that could be a challenge. Like I said, Preston went down to start the second half. I think we started to look like SMU football a little bit. We got points, and we started moving the football, and we just didn’t want to go back and forth when time was running out on us.”