Rhett Lashlee calls out Danny Kanell for leaving Kevin Jennings off top 10 QB list

SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee called out analyst Danny Kanell for leaving QB Kevin Jennings off his top 10 returning quarterbacks for 2026. Jennings has been a solid player with the Mustangs but his head coach was left baffled with this one.

Lashlee joined Kanell and Dusty Dvoracek on Sirius XM to jokingly call out the former FSU QB. The SMU head coach noted Jennings carried a lot of the Mustangs on his back in 2025.

“Yeah, I got a bone to pick with you Danny, he’s not in your top 10,” Lashlee said. “I thought you were a ball knower. But you know that nowadays you get classified as a ball knower, I was really looking forward to retweeting ball knower with you, and I couldn’t do it because you’re not. Here’s what I’ll say about Kevin. Kevin carried us last year, especially on offense, and so Kevin made a big jump from his first year to last year for whatever reason. Maybe it’s because we lost that last game on the two minute drive and didn’t make it back to the ACC championship game, and didn’t make it back to the playoffs. He didn’t make the perceptive list of guys.”

Last year, Jennings threw for a career-high 3,641 yards, 26 touchdowns, 13 interceptions and a 66.1% completion percentage. He added four rushing touchdowns.

But as Lashlee said, things didn’t break SMU’s way last year and Jennings also threw for a career-high in picks as well. The Mustangs did not make it back to the ACC Championship nor the College Football Playoff in 2025, something that could change this fall.

“Look, there’s a great QB class coming back next year, but there’s no list that starts with him, not in the top 10. There’s just not,” Lashlee said. “What he’s done for two years, what he’s capable of doing next year. I think we’ve got a much better supporting cast around him on offense coming into this next season. 

“Out of the gates, we play Florida State, we play Louisville, we got Notre Dame later in the year. He’s going to have great opportunities, but what I hope is, is that he’ll get more respect in the offseason, going into next year as a top 10 caliber quarterback and a Heisman contender, instead of people forgetting about him and just going to the usual brands and the usual suspects and being lazy, not saying you’re being lazy.”