Everything Rhett Lashlee said before SMU faced Missouri State

SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee spoke with the media Tuesday after the 48-45 loss to Baylor and ahead of the road trip to Missouri State. Here’s everything he had to say to reporters.

Opening Statement: “Well, good to be back practicing and getting ready for another game on Saturday. It’s what we needed. Just recapping after having a chance to look at Saturday’s game back. It kind of was exactly what we felt, what it felt like. It was a game where our guys did a lot of things really well,” Lashlee said. “We ran the ball well, we won the run game, we won the turnover battle. We won the battle of field position. Explosives were pretty even. We did a lot of the things that we needed to do to win the football game. I think that’s why we found ourselves up 38-24 with eight minutes and 24 seconds to go. We did a lot of things that would say we deserved to win, but we didn’t earn the win. I think it was a 98 percent chance to win at one point, whether it was at 8:24 or five or six minutes. It was a great opportunity in a disappointing situation for us to teach and learn as a young team, a young team playing a team with a lot of veterans. When you go up 14 with 8:24 to go, we’ve been really good at finishing here, and we didn’t finish. 

“If it says 98 percent, the reality of it is the hardest thing to do in sports is close out. Those last 2 percent is the hardest two of the 100. I think there’s some lessons to be learned, some painful growing pains that we gotta go through. Make no mistake, we don’t accept it and wanna tolerate it. We’re not okay with it, we’re pissed off about it because the guys put in so much work throughout the year, throughout the week and for three and a half quarters to put themselves in a great position to win against a good football team, in my opinion, a Top 25 caliber football team. Like I said, I think we deserve to win, but we didn’t earn the win. It’s very similar, you think about the Duke game last year. We probably didn’t deserve to win and we did. We’re not giving it back, they aren’t either. I think there’s a lot of positives, but when you lose, nobody thinks about that. 

“You look at the Baltimore Ravens, 40-25, and they look like, to me, the favorite to win the Super Bowl, and they didn’t win the game. It’s gonna be how we handle this. Do we use this? Do we let it be a catalyst for us as a team, as individuals? It’s hurtful. We’re moving on. We got a tough week to go on the road for the first time against Missouri State. We need to go play well. We need to play ticked off. We need to get a win, and heal up that wound of last week. Get a scar that will remind us in the future when in those situations, hopefully we’ll respond better.

“Missouri State, Ryan Beard going up there. They’re gonna have probably 17,000-20,000 packed. It’s their first home game as an FBS school. They got a big win last week, they won eight games last year. He does it right, there’s a lot of ties. So it’s really good for us to go on the road and try to put our regular season road winning streak to the test and see if we can respond. That’s all sports are, everybody gets knocked back down. It’s how we respond that’ll determine this team and I thought they responded decent today.”

On growth from SMU in Week 1 to Week 2: “Yeah, I really am pleased with the growth. I think you saw a much improved team in Week 2 from Week 1, particularly offensively, thought we executed much better. We were balanced, we threw for almost 300 yards, we ran the ball, especially in the 2nd half when we needed to. The penalties were way down, I think we had five penalties. I think we’ve had five penalties in the last six quarters. The one that can’t happen, and it’s being addressed internally, because Romello Brinson is a phenomenal young man. He’s a great father. There’s not a bad bone in his body, he’s a great kid. But that’s back-to-back weeks with unsportsmanlike conduct, penalties. I love the way he’s playing, and he’s playing with a lot of passion, but we can’t hurt the team. So we’re handling that internally, cuz that’s not who we are, and it’s not who he is.”

“Overall, I mean, we had good ball security. We had the one poor play with Matt and Kev in the red zone that hurt us. But overall, for the course of the game, we were much improved. I think defensively, for three and a half quarters, we stopped the run like we needed to. There was two drives that we really needed to and we didn’t. Special teams, outside of kicking, we won the battle of field position by nine yards. We got a turnover, we limited their return from being explosive. So when you look from Week 1 to Week 2, man, we made the jump. I think that’s probably what makes the loss so difficult is, we made the jump. We played well enough to win against a really good opponent, and we just embodied the old saying, we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. If we use it, we can’t go back and change the result of the game. But we also can take from the fact that we had a really good football team down two scores with eight minutes to go. I think it shows our potential is what we think it is. We just gotta get there quick. We did make that improvement, but we gotta finish when we’re in those situations.”

On evaluating SMU linebackers without Alex Kilgore, Zakye Barker: “You look at us, we lost the two starters from last year and probably the two starters from this year. I thought Brandon Miyazano, Brandon Booker and Justin Medlock played really well. Like I said, we stopped the run well majority of the night. There were some moments particularly in the red area on one drive before half. Then obviously that last drive that we needed to do better. By and large, we did a good job of that. I thought those guys stepped up. Just like I thought on offense, Jalen Cooper and some others stepped up without Jordan Hudson. It’s gonna have to continue to be the deal. Like I said, that’s why we got young guys are gonna keep playing. You got to grow through their development, which means there’s some growing pains, but there was a lot of good.”

On how to make sure SMU is focused this weekend: “A lot of the game is mental. We walk through, when you look at the scoreboard and there’s 8:24 left, you’re up 14, the mind can wander, right? We have to have that desperation, that ability to strain and focus to finish. The fourth quarter started tight and like that, we’re up two scores. So we started to finish very well, but what you got to understand is your opponent is in a desperate mode then. Like they are desperate, right? This is do or die for them, not literally, but in the game sense. We have to run out on the field defensively with more urgency and more desperation to stop them than they have to score. We have to run on the field offensively with more desperation to maintain the ball than they have to get it back. That’s the mental lesson from the game. Then the psyche post game is how do we respond? How do we handle it? Cuz it can bring you closer together and unite you. It’s not like we played bad football and got beat. We played good football. So how do we move on? We got everything still in front of us on the season. If we will keep getting better like we did from Week 1 to Week 2, we can still have a really good football team and we can use this and it can make us better.”

On sticking with SMU RB TJ Harden in the 2nd half: “I think there was a couple things. One, we felt going into the game, the way their scheme was, we needed to run right at them more than side to side which obviously fits T.J. strength although he showed his explosiveness on the long run. We kind of went into the game with T.J. and Chris. T.J. we felt like in the first half was seeing it better. He was hitting the holes better than Chris. So we kind of just decided shortly into the third quarter, just kind of ride with him. I thought he got better and better. Like I’ve always said, it’s hard, we got a lot of talented backs. When one running back can get 15+ carries, they can get in a rhythm. We really asserted our physicality in the second half. And I think that was a big part of why we got that lead. So T.J.’s been really good. He’s great in pass protection. He’s good downhill. He showed he does have explosiveness. We need Chris or Derrick to come on and give us that explosive element. It was good to see Chunky Dramekco Green get some action. We will continue to bring him along cuz we think he can help us as well.”

On getting the SMU TEs involved more: “Yeah, I mean, it’s a little bit of both. I mean, we threw for about 300 yards against a team that gave up 100 a week before. Some of it’s scheme. They’re playing with two high safeties a lot of the time. I thought obviously Melo and Jalen Cooper made plays. Hibner had two big catches for us. RJ is still, we’re just going to keep coming. I mean, he’s healthy, but he’s probably, what, 80, 85 percent in terms of just his burst. I think in the next few weeks he’ll have it all back. Yamir Knight is a guy we need to get going. I mean, Yamir’s talented. We want to get him to football. We need to get him to football. You see when you go and punt returns. He practices hard, so I think he’s a really good player. We need those guys internally by meaning the inside of the offense, we got to get them to ball in good spots, but we’re also we’re not going to force the ball where it doesn’t need to go based on the scheme we’re playing. To your point, yeah, we’d like to get, particularly Yamir more opportunities.”