Everything Rhett Lashlee said after SMU beat Virginia

SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee spoke with the media on Saturday after the 33-7 win over Virginia. Here’s what Lashlee had to say.

Opening statement: “Well, really, really excited, proud of our team, man. I thought they played a really good game. I thought Virginia did a good job specifically, you know, defense, they did a nice job changing up their looks and keeping us from being able to finish drives early. But our defense was just unbelievable today. I think we had nine sacks and 12 tackles for loss. They were three of 15 on third down. You know, did a really good job stopping the run again, you know, 65 yards allowed us to kind of really control the game and if we don’t turn the ball over late, I think they had a special day and just, man, super proud of our guys. It’s hard to win 10 games. It’s hard to do something that’s never been done before. No one’s ever moved from a small conference to a power conference and gone to the championship game in their first year, so just really proud of our guys for doing that.”

I was gonna say what does that mean to you to be the coach of the first team to do that? 

Rhett Lashlee: “I’m really proud of ‘em, I’m a humble man. I’m happy for ‘em. Like, I had this thought Friday, like I’m gonna miss a lot of these guys. It’s a fun group, man. They love playing together. They love playing for each other. They love playing for SMU. They don’t care who gets the credit. And I think that’s why they win, and it’s special. And so I’m just a lucky guy who gets to be their coach. And so I know we’re really motivated as coaches to do everything we can to put them in position to be successful. But today’s a big deal. It’s a big stinking deal, but job’s not done. And just like when we got our sixth win to be bowl eligible, getting our 10th win and clinching a spot in Charlotte, it’s hard to do. We’re excited about that, but we got a home game against Cal. We need to finish this thing off right. We’re still playing for a lot of other things. And we wanna send our seniors out the right way. So we’re gonna celebrate this tonight on the flight home. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. Sunday, the players are off. Monday morning, we’ll celebrate the win and get rolling on Cal just like we always do, but just really proud to be their coach right now.” 

You chose to extend yesterday with SMU, what is it about this season that makes you see this program a part of your long-term future and wanting to stay here? 

Rhett Lashlee: “I mean, it doesn’t have anything to do with this season, although this season’s awesome. It’s the vision. It’s what we all knew could happen. It’s happening pretty quick. And by no means do we think if it’s happened once, that’s just going to be easy to continue to duplicate. But we want to be here. So that was never a doubt. Really thankful to Dr. Turner and Rick Hart and our entire board of trustees, Bill’s in here right now, and Bill and Liz, and David Miller, and everyone just for wanting us to be here. That’s our deal. If we’re wanted, we want to be here. And our kids are happy. I’m happy. So there was really never a doubt. I kind of hate when that stuff comes out the day before a game because it’s not about me. When you get extended, that’s extending our staff. We have the best staff in America. They’re incredible. The kids are the guys who go and do it, so, but really happy to know we get to be in Dallas longer.” 

Coach, how do you balance staying healthy for the ACC Championship and getting ready for Cal next week? 

Rhett Lashlee: “Yeah, I mean, I think some years you’d say, man, maybe hold some guys or what? No, I mean, there’s college football playoff rankings that come out every Tuesday, and I, you know, they got a tough job to do, and we got to keep winning, and we put ourselves in a position, there’s two guaranteed games left in our season. If we win one of them, I know we’re in. If we win the other one, we still might be in. You know, if we win them both, we’re in. So, like, we just, we got to find a way to, and again, every time it gets hard, like today, today was hard, you know, knowing what’s at stake. The first time our guys know, man, if we win, we clinch a spot in the championship game, and they did it. So, we just got to continue to be able to stay tunnel vision, focus on the week at hand. Cal’s a good football team. I know they got a game going right now, but you look at what they’ve done. I think they’ve got five one-score losses this year, and probably three just because they couldn’t make a field goal inside 40 yards. So they’re a problem, and we’re going to have our hands full. And we also want to continue to keep the winning way. So it’d be great to finish undefeated in the conference, win the regular season outright, and continue to hopefully impress the committee and put ourselves in a position for a bid, no matter what happens in the championship game.”

Nine sacks of Colandrea today. What can you say about the DL plan today and some of the plays that they made? 

Rhett Lashlee: “It’s good to have Elijah Roberts back. It’s good to have the depth we had. I haven’t seen all the numbers. I know Turbo had a big day. Nine sacks, 12 tackles for loss. Against a guy who’s hard to tackle. Probably against a guy like me back there it’s 16 sacks, right? So at least the older me. And so you can’t say enough about them. In the first half, I think the second drive, we had a really good drive offensively. And then we just kind of sputtered for a while. We went down and missed a field goal. I think we went down, I don’t know what else we did. But like – and they just kept stopping them. They stopped them on a fourth and short. They held them to a field goal and miss. They stopped them on another fourth down. Allowed us to get the lead up to where it was at the half. 1 -0, probably should have been about 24. But, and same thing in the second half, you know, the guy makes a great interception on Kevin on the first one. I mean, it was an incredible play. And they got the ball at the 30 or whatever it was. And they just keep them totally off the board. And then the last one, you know, again, if we don’t turn it over on 25, I think they might have got the shutout. So, really just an incredible job by those guys. But it all starts up front. We stopped the run. We can rush the passer. And they did that today.”

Kevin took a beating. Was he okay? 

Rhett Lashlee: “Yeah, yeah, he got hit in the back, the ribs. And again, he was able to come back in. If it was anything serious at all, especially with the score, he wouldn’t have gone in to hand the ball off. So, he should be fine.” 

Do you have any early thoughts on your possible opponents in the ACC Championship game? 

Rhett Lashlee: “No, I saw already Miami won, so we won’t know until next week right. So here’s what we know, we’re in it you know, and we know we’re gonna get a chance to play for it. I don’t think our guys are gonna have any trouble getting ready to play for that game and we focus on Cal so it’s awesome to have that ticket punched in to be able to play free next week without that pressure of you know everybody asking, hey if you don’t win is this gonna be a big collapse or something we’re not to worry about that, but we do have to worry about Cal and you know we need to keep our momentum going into that game but it doesn’t matter if it’s Miami or Clemson both of those teams are top 12 caliber teams for a reason and year in, year out in it so we’re gonna have our hands full but we’re gonna focus on Cal.” 

Any update on SMU WR Jordan Hudson yeah and he also had another strong day. 

Rhett Lashlee: “Yeah he’s playing well I mean, I think the last three weeks are Jordan, Moochie and Key’Shawn and of course Roderick Daniels but our outside receivers have really stepped up big, you know, people are starting to now try to stop the run with Brashard and Kevin but it’s getting a little bit harder. But then we’re getting the one-on-ones and they’re still playing off and those guys are just making really good plays. He got dinged on the one that they reviewed and I don’t know the extent of it. They wouldn’t let him play in the second half, but he was out there very alert with the guys in the huddle every play. He seemed fine to me, so I’ll find out more, probably tomorrow. Usually Sunday, Monday, I get a little bit of better clarity on how severe it is in terms of availability for next week, but I don’t think it’s long term.” 

After everything Jordan’s given you, especially in the last few weeks, when he left the game today, how did that change the play calling scheme that you were able to use? 

Rhett Lashlee: “Well, it just hurt our depth because with Romelo being out, now Jordan’s out. We’re down to really Moochie and Key’shawn on the outside. And so for two reasons, one, we got up 20, especially when we got up 26. We really slowed the game down and huddled more just to slow it down, make sure we weren’t getting our signals picked and all that. And just, we wanted to run it better than we did. But we’re really trying to eat some clock, keep our defense off the field a little bit, and again, it becomes a math problem at this point. You’re up 26, they only get so many more shots at it unless you do what we did and fumble one and give it to them. So we slowed it down for two reasons, but that was one of them. Like just Moochie and Key’shawn, we wanted to give them some breathers in between plays when we could. And so that’s the biggest thing. It didn’t affect the play calling in terms of the aggressiveness. It was more the depth and then the scoreboard dictated it.” 

You had a good group of fans in the corner there. Just what does it mean to have that support on the road and just your thoughts on the overall SMU community and what they’re feeling right now? 

Rhett Lashlee: “It’s awesome. I mean, shoot, we played here today. We played at Louisville, we played at Stanford, we played at Duke. And in all four of those games, there were many times throughout the game where I hear the chants of SMU from our crowds on the road. That’s special. And so I think our fans have shown we’ll travel in our first year in the league and we’ve already shown what we can do at Ford Stadium and look, we need our fans. Saturday’s a big deal and I know it’s Thanksgiving weekend, the kids are out of school and people travel and all that. Thanksgiving’s Thursday, right? Turkey coma’s Friday. Saturday at 2:30 at Ford Stadium is for the Mustangs. And so we need everybody to get back into Dallas. We need everybody in Dallas to come watch SMU play. We need as many students as we can to go ahead and come on back and have a Saturday afternoon and evening and a Sunday to get ready to go back to school the next week. So, cuz our home environment has been special this year. And it’s been a big reason that we’ve won the way we have and we’re gonna need them on Saturday. And so that’s a plea for them to come be a part of something special.”

You mentioned the big game that Turbo had for you on the defensive side. Matt Hibner catches a touchdown with a couple minutes left. He’s the only Virginia resident on your roster. Any part of that play called simply the fact that he had friends and family and fans? 

Rhett Lashlee: “No, no, it wasn’t, honestly. I mean, I do know he’s from here, but I never thought about it until you just told me this week. So contrary to popular opinion, that stuff kind of doesn’t enter up here this time of year, but kind of, because we had him wide open right before half, and Kev missed him. And Matt has been so good, and I think Matt, he’s got another year. I think the way he’s playing this year, if he comes back and has a good year, I think Matt’s gonna play on Sundays. He’s a really good all-around player. He’s tough, he’s physical, he’s a pretty good weapon catching the football. And he’s physical, he’s a blocker, he’s a great special teams player. So, but it was cool, I’m sure he had a lot of family in the stands. So if it looks like I meant to do it, that’s fine.”