It doesn’t have the buzz of Alabama over Florida State in the final College Football Playoff Rankings, but in the biggest impact on the G5 level, Liberty edged SMU for the New Year’s Six spot.
Liberty (13-0) earned the New Year’s Six berth and will face Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl after being the highest G5 team in the final CFP rankings at No. 23. SMU (11-2) was right behind at No. 24.
This isn’t to argue who deserved the bid. Liberty, as we all know, didn’t play a great schedule and had no games against Power Five schools. SMU’s two losses were to Power Five Schools on the road, Oklahoma and TCU.
Liberty did beat New Mexico State twice, which crushed Auburn, which suffered a heartbreaking 4th-and-31 defeat to playoff-bound Alabama.
SMU, meanwhile, beat a then-CFP-ranked Tulane team 26-14 on the road in the AAC championship.
With a backup QB no less.
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When arguing about the top G5 team, there is one undisputable fact – Liberty and SMU are both quality teams. No need to put one down at the other’s expense.
Liberty will be a tough out against Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl. This is the G5 Super Bowl. In addition, one has to wonder if Oregon will be nearly as motivated after a second close loss to Washington kept the Ducks out of the College Football Playoff.
While SMU would get the vote in these corners over Liberty, it’s not an egregious decision by the CFP committee.
So that debate will go on, but this is really to note what SMU accomplished. The victory over Tulane was one of the most impressive wins this season in college football.
SMU played that game as if it were a Power Five team.
Oh, wait, the Mustangs will be a Power Five team after one final game when they face future ACC foe Boston College in the Fenway Bowl.
To beat a Tulane team with a second-string quarterback, was truly amazing. SMU redshirt freshman Kevin Jennings picked quite a time to make his first collegiate start.
He filled in for Preston Stone, who suffered a broken leg the week before in a 59-14 rout of Navy.
If one looks at Jennings’ statistics, they weren’t overwhelming, but he showed off-the-charts poise, especially after fumbling on the first play from scrimmage, putting the ball on the SMU 1-yard-line.
Tulane scored to take a 7-0 lead before anybody could blink.
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Jennings completed 19 of 33 passes for 203 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions. He did rush for 63 yards on 15 carries. And a key stat was that he was sacked just once. Jennings faced plenty of heat from the Tulane pass rush and continually bought himself time with his scrambling ability.
On the other end, SMU sacked AAC Offensive Player of the Year Michael Pratt seven times, including 2.5 sacks by sophomore DE Isaiah Smith.
The reason SMU earned its first conference title since earning a share of the Southwest Conference championship in 1984, is because of the great balance that coach Rhett Lashlee’s team displayed.
The Mustangs are sixth nationally in scoring offense, averaging 40.6 points per game. They are 12th in scoring defense, allowing 17.38 points.
The only other team in the nation that is in the top six in scoring offense and top 12 in scoring defense is Oregon, which is second in scoring offense and 11th in scoring defense.
The Mustangs’ top regular season win was a 38-34 victory at Memphis, a quality AAC team that at times got lost in the publicity shuffle.
The key this season was how Lashlee built the team through the transfer portal. Junior linebacker Kobe Wilson, a Temple transfer, has a team-high 74 tackles.
Cornerback Charles Woods, a graduate transfer from West Virginia, has a team-high 11 pass breakups. Senior RB Jaylan Knighton, a transfer from Miami, has rushed for a team-high 720 yards. Knighton averages 5.6 yards per carry and has scored seven times.
These are just a few of the transfers who have made major contributions, along with key high school recruits such as Stone and Jennings.
In only his second year, Lashlee has put it all together (and earned a recent contract extension for his effort).
So even though SMU would rather be playing in Arizona on New Year’s instead of Boston in late December, this has been quite a season for the Mustangs, ending a four-decade conference title drought and making their final year as a G5 team a truly memorable one.
