Everything Rhett Lashlee said on SMU's bye week, offense, early look at TCU

SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee spoke with the media on Tuesday about the quarterback position, what needs to be corrected after the loss to BYU and what’s next with TCU next up on the schedule. Here’s everything he said to the media.

Opening statement: “Just getting started, had a chance to clean up and go through the film. A lot of it’s what we thought. I got asked some questions though the other night post game andI said I needed to look. I think looking at it, we’re really disappointed that we missed an opportunity. Kind of feel like it was one of those games that we lost more than we got beat and that’s frustrating. We didn’t make ourselves hard to beat as a football team and we had a lot of opportunities. We missed those opportunities to be 3-0. I think defensively we played really well, great effort, forcing turnovers, big stops, really proud of how those guys played. I think from a special teams standpoint, we really dominated the game from a special team standpoint in all four phases.

“When you start thinking there’s 30-plus plays, usually, in a game special teams, we won all four phases. The problem is we had two critical holding penalties that hurt our field position and then we had the unfortunate ball bounce and hit us in the back and give them a turnover. And that’s kind of where we are in teams right now. We’re actually a lot better on teams this year, but we’ve kind of had one play every game that’s just been critical. So, if we can clean up the critical disaster play, I think we’re getting better on teams. Offensively, it’s not to our standard. It was a very poor performance. We knew that live, everybody did. I thought they played hard, thought we played physical. We blocked extremely well on the perimeter and did things that are evidence that we played hard. We did not play well. We were very undisciplined in how we performed and that’s, I think, probably the frustration you felt in me after the game and I know our fan base and everyone else felt it too. But I’m excited that we’re moving forward. They’re all things that I know we can fix and improve on as we turn the page and get ready to move on. Unfortunately, we went 2-1 in the first quarter of our season. Had a chance to go 3-0 and we didn’t do it.”

On naming Kevin Jennings SMU’s starting QB over Preston Stone: “When it comes to the quarterback situation, I think we’ve got a clear direction now on consistency. Kevin Jennings is going to be our starting quarterback. Preston will serve as the backup. It was not an easy decision in terms of the fact that Preston’s a winner. He loves this place. He’s given a lot to this program. It is not all about Preston. It’s just this gives our team the best chance moving forward, right now, and that’s what we’re going to do. But, like I said, he’s a winner. It’s not the last you’ll hear of Preston Stone, but that’s what we’re going to do with Kevin moving forward. And we’ve got a lot of confidence in our football team to clean up the things we need to clean up.

“There’s a lot of factors. It wasn’t one game or one moment. Like I said, both guys have had a lot of success and won a lot. We’re not performing well offensively, but if you just watch and you look at all the evidence, we’ve moved the ball better at the beginning of the season when he’s in there, as a team. And again, that’s not always on the quarterback. The early drives the other night, we had a lot of busts and protections and other things that aren’t on the quarterback that really contributed to some of the early issues. So that’s frustrating, but that’s why I said it’s not just one snapshot of anything. It’s the, we feel like it gives us the best chance to win with this team. We feel like the way we are on offense and the direction we need to go and with the pieces we have, it’s going to give us the best chance to win and, most importantly, gives our team and our offense consistency. Wee can start to get back to the identity that we’ve always had on offense and move forward and give ourselves the best chance to win.”

On SMU’s wide receivers: “I mean, look the way that we’re not making people defend the whole field and that’s some of the reasons for things we’ve got to do differently, and that’s what we’ve always done. They were able to just sink back with four or five guys. They’re not letting you be explosive, nobody has in the first three weeks. It’s smart against us because that’s something we’ve done well historically and they’re packing it in. We’re able to run the ball, but you can’t be overly explosive running the ball. That’s why you saw the other night we had tons of 8, 10, 12-play drives and then we blew it in the red zone. The difference in the game was, we had the ball inside the 10 basically three times and got zero points. We went for it on fourth-and-1, didn’t execute. We should have scored a touchdown. We didn’t execute. That’s the undisciplined piece that we’ve got to fix.

“Then we fumble at the 5 and then we throw an interception at the 5. You kick three field goals there, you win the game. And field goals aren’t good. The other two times we did kick field goals, so we were there five times and got zero touchdowns. That’s almost unheard of for us. And so, the way they’re playing us, we’ve got to make people defend the whole field and we can’t let them do that to us. So the receivers didn’t have any one-on one-opportunities to separate. They didn’t play a lot of man coverage. It was a lot of zone coverage, a lot of guys are double teamed. That’s why you saw we were able to get some things going in the middle of the field. But I don’t think the receivers necessarily played poorly. When we threw it to them, they caught it and made plays, but we didn’t have a lot of opportunities. We’ve got to do things as an offense to make people defend us differently so we can open up the opportunities we need.”

On SMU’s offensive line: “I think we still kind of know the five or six guys. We may look at the right matchups in terms of that. I mean, we were really poor. Again, I’ve told you, they’re a team that’s more of a four-down front and they came out odd stack look. We did not handle that well the first two drives. But even then, the issues we had were all really self-inflicted. The the first third down, it is third-and-11 so that’s tough, but we just didn’t execute a basic pass off of a twist. The second drive, the very first play, we try to play-action and our running back and our guard don’t execute the protection on a blitz. We we’re going to have a chance for a big play there, instead now it’s second-and-20. I mean, we’ve just gone backwards in those moments. We had to play a critical drive that ended up giving them good field position and scoring, where we try to throw it down the field on first down and we get a holding call, now it’s first-and-20. Again, I’m not taking away, we lost to a good opponent that played well and played hard. It was a really tight, close, physical, defensive game, but man, we did a lot of things to beat ourselves. And good teams make themselves hard to beat. It’s what we did last year and we just did not make ourselves hard to beat Friday night and we lost the opportunity to win”

On maybe going more full speed in practice with the bye: “I mean, there’s a fine line. We’re going to make sure, we’ve got a long nine games still left in a long season, in a physical season. We’re about to play the hardest three-game stretch SMU’ss played in 30 years. It is what it is. We’re about to go TCU, Florida State, Louisville. SMU’s not played a three game stretch like that in anybody on our football team’s lifetime. So we’re going to be smart. This week does give us a chance. We’re fairly healthy after the first three games. We’ve got some guys that are normal bumps and bruises and a few guys that are nicked up, but get our guys to feeling as fresh as they can by next Saturday. At the same time, there’s a lot of work to be done to your point and it’s early in the season. I think you approach, maybe, a bye week in Week 4 for us, 3 for everyone else, different than maybe the other two. We’re going to get our work in. But we’ve been smart. I think today’s Tuesday and we’ve not had a full practice yet. Normally we would have (Tuesday), but we are going to (Wednesday) and Thursday and we’ll get running around Friday. So we’re going to, I think, do a good job balancing and getting the work in. We were always going to do full speed stuff, but we’re not gonna be crazy because we’re going to get after it again next week get ready to go play.”

Initial impressions of TCU: “Got to watch him play the Stanford game and then I’ve now seen their other game. Offensively, they’re the same. They’re explosive. They’ve got really good playmakers. I know they’re getting the ball to Savion (Williams) a lot, but they’ve got a lot of other dudes that are really good football players. They got good running backs. got great tight ends. Quarterback’s a really good player. He’s solid man. He’s accurate. He gets the ball out. If you give him an opportunity, he’s going to make you hurt. He’s not going to miss open guys and he’s not going to not know where to go with the ball and take sacks and stuff. So, I think they’re really, really good on offense. I mean, they score points and even their first game, when they weren’t scoring, it was more self-inflicted and they got that figured out. Then I think defensively, they made a change with Andy (Avalos) and I know they want to be more aggressive. They blitz a ton. That’s what they’ve done in the first two games. They’re more of a four-down front, which is a change from what they’ve been. But I think they’ve got really good edge rushers. Think they got big D-tackles. I think the linebackers are probably the strength of their defense. I mean, all three of those guys are really, really good and then I like both their safeties. It’s good football team. I think they’re going to have a chance to win the Big 12. But, you know, SMU-TCU, we’re always excited for that opportunity.”

On SMU DC Scott Symons: “Scott Symons is one of the best defensive coaches in college football. I think he’s proven that because it’s sustained success he’s had. I mean, you look what he did at Liberty and then what he’s now done here last year and what we’re doing into this year. He’s a very sound coach from a schematic standpoint. He’s a tireless worker in terms of studying film and trying to find weaknesses in opponents or how to best attack them. And the scheme is designed to do what people try to do to us and limit the explosive plays. And so even when people are moving the ball on you, you make them drive the field, it gives you a chance to get off the field with field goals or force the turnovers, etc. I think most importantly, of course, last year was big for us as a program defensively, but he’s just instilled so much confidence in our players. Success breeds confidence. We’ve been able to have some success on defense. We know the opponents are about to get a lot better. We know the offenses are going to get better. We’re not going to hold people to 18 points every week, but that’s not what we have to do to win. But our guys play with a lot of confidence. I think Scott’s really good. I just think, like I said, I think the biggest thing is we just have a confident edge. We expect to play well each week on defense like we expect to play well on offense. And so when we don’t, we’re usually really upset, and that’s where we want to be.

“The first year you come in, you haven’t had a chance to recruit and do the things that, maybe, you want to do. We still found a way to have a winning season and get to a bowl and do some good things. But no, I think it was frustrating for him and everybody, but I never had a doubt that he knew what he was doing and our staff knew what we were doing. I think our kids deserve a lot of credit for staying bought into it going into Year 2.”

On how SMU’s players have handled the Jennings-Stone battle: “I mean, the players believe in those guys because they voted on both captains. So, that’s not going to change. It’s their team. It’s not my team, it’s their team I just lead it. But I mean, Kevin walked into Tulane last year and led us to a conference championship game victory. I think Kevin has a lot of upside and ability to get better each week. I think there’s a reality, he has two career starts, so there’s still some experience. Even the other night in that two-minute drill, we needed to be better, I needed to be better. But I think you can see it’s a guy’s first time ever in a two-minute drill at the end of the game. It’s just different than practice. So I think he’ll get better and better. He just has to be Kevin. He has to get the ball to the teammates, distribute the ball, execute the offense. There’ll be plays to be made and when it happens his ability will take over. But he doesn’t have to go out and be Superman. That’s not what we’re asking him to do. But I think our kids believe in him.”

On picking a starter: “I think it helps not only me, but our team out to just have consistency, whoever it is, right. They can both run our offense. They are both different. There’s nothing wrong with that. We’ve obviously won with Preston, at a good level. We’ve won with Kevin. Like I said, it’s not ever an easy decision to make when you’ve got to do what you feel is best for the football team knowing it’s going to hurt someone you really care about and it doesn’t diminish our belief in Preston. This is not the end for Preston Stone. You’ve not heard the last of Preston Stone, whether it be here at SMU or anywhere, he’s a winner. He’s disappointed, like we all are and like he should be, but he’s going to handle it like the winner and champion he is.

“To your question, I mean, more importantly whichever direction we decided to go, it allows us to build the identity we need to have on offense. We’ve always had an identity on offense. It’s been kind of hard these first three games, and that’s not on the kids, that’s my job to get that done. Look, I’m happy where our program is because I think we’re 10- 2 in our last 12 games and we’re sitting here really disappointed that we lost a game to BYU, a great program, because we should have won it, and we very well could have won it. Look, that’s where we want to be. Losing stinks. But again, when you’re 10-2 in your last 12 games, we’re doing something right. Our guys will respond. I know we’ve got a tough stretch coming up. It’s it’s more about us, kind of, responding the right way and continuing to progress forward and I think we’ll do that.”