The Home Stretch

Mustangs Look To Finish Strong, Starting With Memphis

DALLAS – Three games in four weeks. That’s all that’s left this year of SMU’s opportunities to end a long conference-game losing streak – now at 14 - and avoid a second consecutive one-win season.

Saturday’s Homecoming game against Memphis would be a grand time to erase those Halloween-leftover goblins.

“Hopefully, we’ll have a big crowd and have something for them to yell about,” said SMU head coach June Jones on Monday. “We had opportunities to win the last two home games and didn’t do it.”

June Jones says he plans to "stay the course" with this team. "That's the only way to turn it around. I've been in these situations before and the formula works.

But a “W” won’t come easy. Eighth-year Memphis head coach Tommy West and the surging Tigers have won four of their last six and are eying a fifth bowl appearance in six years.

Memphis comes off a bye - like SMU - having stopped Southern Miss, 36-30, its last time out. The Mustangs’ Run-and-Shoot got swamped at Navy, 34-7.

Jones said he wasn’t really surprised at how Navy’s rushing game dominated SMU.

“They rush the ball, obviously, pretty well against everybody,” he said. “You’re not going to take away everything. I thought we defended some of the things very well. Obviously, the quarterback, the kind of lead that they were running, they kind of stuck with that. It wasn’t big plays, but it was three, four, five, six yards at a time.”

Linebacker Pete Fleps had a career-high 23 tackles for SMU.

“I thought our defense played well enough to make it competitive if we had done anything offensively,” Jones said.

Bo Levi Mitchell completed 16 of 28 passes for 157 yards in the wind and rain, with one interception and a touchdown. Wideout Aldrick Robinson led SMU with seven catches for 94 yards and a touchdown.

With the season winding down, is there more urgency for SMU to win? “The sense of urgency isn’t any more for me than it was from Week One,” Jones said. “We’re on a mission to win here and we will win. … We haven’t been able to do that yet. Will we do that? Yeah, we will. Will be go to a bowl? Yeah, we will.”

Jones said he plans to “stay the course” in his approach with the team. “That’s the only way to turn it around. I’ve been in these situations before and the formula works.”

For a second straight game, SMU faces a team that’s down to its third-string quarterback. Junior Brett Toney (6-1, 190) gets his second career start on Saturday. If he goes down, Memphis’ situation gets sticky. Fourth-stringer Tyler Bass, who shared time with Toney against Southern Miss, is out with a torn ACL. The Tigers’ official athletic Web site, gotigersgo.cstv.com, reports that senior wideout Maurice Jones (6-4, 215) has been taking snaps at No. 2.

Toney has thrown for 190 yards, completing 19 of 31, with one pick and a touchdown. He’s rushed 12 times for two net yards.

Jones said the Tigers are already doing things to protect Toney after losing their first- and second-stringers in one quarter, two games ago. “They are kind of using the Wildcat stuff, with the running back being at quarterback, moving him out. So they’re doing some different things to try to take a little of the exposure off of the quarterback running.”

Memphis running back Curtis Steele (6-0,185), last week’s C-USA Offensive Player of the Week, rushed for 178 yards against Southern Miss.

Steele averages 97.7 yards per game, third best in C-USA. “He’s more powerful than what you think he is,” Jones said. “He has good downhill quickness and speed, but he runs through a lot of tackles and makes you miss a little more than I realized, until you really watch him closely [on tape.]”

Freshman quarterback Braden Smith practices 45-yard deep balls to a barrel on Monday after practice. Smith, who starred for Rockwall High near Dallas, is redshirting this season.

Big Carlos Singleton (6-8, 220), Memphis’ leading receiver, has 45 catches for 669 yards. Senior defensive lineman Clinton McDonald (6-3, 285) has seven sacks, the second most in C-USA.

Memphis has the second-ranked pass defense in C-USA (193 ypg) and its rushing attack is third (184.4 ypg). The Tigers are tops in time of possession (32:44) and the second least penalized team in the league (42.4 ypg).

SMU Notes:

• SMU is 0-2 vs. Memphis, losing, 27-13, in 1976 and, 55-52 (3OT), in 2007.
• Defensive end Adrian Dizer and wideout Terrance Wilkerson are out this week with injuries.
• Aldrick Robinson ranks third nationally with 1,003 receiving yards. Emmanuel Sanders is 11 th with 851. Robinson has 11 TD catches this year, tying SMU’s single-season record set by Emanuel Tolbert in 1978.
• Bo Levi Mitchell leads the nation in interceptions with 19.

On Deck: SMU (1-8, 0-5) vs. Memphis (4-5, 2-3), Saturday, November 8, 2008, 2 p.m. CT, Gerald J. Ford Stadium (32,000), Dallas; TV: none; Radio: KTCK 1310 AM.

Prediction: Light winds, no rain! SMU’s offense should get jiggy wid it, but the D won’t stop Curtis Steele: Memphis, 35-31.

Did You Know? SMU’s school-record 24-game conference losing streak (1989-91) ended September 26, 1992, with a 21-9 win over TCU.

Quotable Jones

On why Bo Levi Mitchell remains healthy while other teams are fielding third- and fourth-string QBs: “I think the biggest difference in what we do and what other teams do is they expose the quarterback more in the run game. … Our quarterback, usually, if he gets sacked, he gets sacked - he doesn’t really get hit. That’s kind of built into the scheme, where there are places to throw the ball quick if they’re coming after you. … I do think there is a place, and we’re going to look at it for next year, at maybe playing with a little bit of the run scheme and some of the pass stuff that we do. But at the same time, I want to be careful not to expose my No. 1 quarterback to some of those liabilities of running the ball.”

Article by Rick Atkinson -
CUSA Fans SMU Correspondent