Preston Stone, RJ Maryland talk SMU win over Nevada

The SMU Mustangs had a tough time early in their opening match against the Nevada Wolf Pack.On the road, head coach Rhett Lashlee saw his team become frustrated and commit a number of unsportsmanlike penalties.

Among the penalties in the game was an unsportsmanlike penalty against the wide receiver Jordan Hudsonwho waved his arm at a player, and Brandon Crossleywho was ejected for spitting on an opponent. These were issues that Lashlee addressed after the game, arguing that that is not who SMU is as a team.

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“I don’t like it at all,” Rhett Lashlee said. “It’s not who we are. It’s not who we want to be. So I’ll watch the film. I know Jordan Hudson got spit on early in the game. So he pushed the guy back with the helmet, which he can’t do. So they called a flag on him and the other side called a flag on him. It’s really hard for guys to control their emotions when they’re getting spit on, but they did it. And then later, same thing again. I’ll have to watch the clip.”

The penalties got out of hand for SMU. The Mustangs had 11 penalties for 125 yards. That was the same number of penalties as Nevada, but the Wolf Pack had only 81 yards of penalties by comparison. It was a problem that almost led to an upset.

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“The officials make decisions and we have to live with it and they do a good job in the game,” Lashlee said. “So we’ll look at the film to see where we can be more disciplined, where we can do a better job. That’s not who we want to be, so anything that we did out of character will be addressed and we’ll have guys on the field that will represent SMU the right way.”

Brandon Crossley, now in his fifth collegiate season, will be a key player for SMU throughout the season, but was ejected for what the game officials described as spitting on an opponent.

Interestingly, despite the claim that Hudson was spat on, the referees didn’t see it and didn’t eject anyone from Nevada, so Lashlee and SMU had to live with the way the game was ultimately handled.

“I don’t know. The decision was made and we respect it. Brandon feels like it went the other way, but he’s out of the game because whatever we did to put ourselves in a position to do that, that’s our fault. It cost us him and it cost us our team,” Lashlee said.

“We have to be better than that. We have to be calm. There is a difference between playing with passion and emotion. We were very emotional tonight. We have to be passionate, big difference.”

Ultimately, SMU won in its first game as an ACC member. However, it was closer than expected and it took a fourth-quarter comeback to get there.