SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee is seen before an NCAA college football game against the Louisville at Gerald J. Ford Stadium, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025 in University Park.
Chitose Suzuki/Dallas Morning News
It’s go time for Rhett Lashlee and the SMU Mustangs.
SMU will take center stage in a primetime matchup at Florida State on Monday night as the two teams square off in the final game of Week 1.
Lashlee joined the Musers on Sportsradio 96.7 FM/1310 The Ticket (KTCK-AM) and discussed the Mustangs’ upcoming season opener against the Seminoles, the wild and ever-changing world of college football and more.
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See highlights of the conversation below, edited lightly for clarity.
You must be pretty excited you guys are the final game of the weekend, that’s always a great scene at Doak Campbell Stadium. Y’all must be pretty pumped for this one.
Rhett Lashlee: Yeah, it’s good to finally be in game week after a long offseason. And yeah, to your point, we’re the last game of Week 1 of the regular season, but a great opportunity on Labor Day Monday night. Only game going on in the country, Monday Night Football at Tallahassee, a great venue against an iconic program. So, great opportunity for us.
Florida State played Week 0 against New Mexico State. Is that an advantage for them to get some action before they play you?
Lashlee: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s always probably better to have played a game than not. First games are always a challenge every year. It’s your first game. You’re learning who you’re going to be as a new team, and a lot of things happen, a lot of unknowns in first games. So they kind of got that out of the way, and so going into Week 2, you typically settle in and and play better, and so they’ll have that opportunity, and they’re at home. But for us, it’s our first game, so we just got to do a good job of of trying to start off the season fast, and really that first quarter. So how quickly can we settle in and get into a game rhythm on the road in a tough environment will be key.
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What kind of squad do the Seminoles have this year?
Lashlee: Yeah, I think they’re talented. I mean, there’s probably, I’m spitballing here, but there’s probably six to eight teams in our league that are talented enough to win the league, and they’re definitely one of them. They’ve got over 30 four- and five-stars on their roster, just like always. They’re fast. They’re really athletic. Offensively, they’ve got a veteran quarterback who can hurt you throwing it and running it. They got two or three really good running backs. They’ve got a preseason first-team All-ACC receiver, two really good receivers, and then on defense, they’re just fast. They got a lot of length across the board up front, on the back end, everywhere. Two really good corners. So it’s typical Florida State, a lot of athletes and they’re going to be playing really well at home.
Kevin Jennings has put up some terrific numbers and is getting some Heisman buzz. Talk about the progression you’ve seen from him these last couple of years.
Lashlee: Yeah, we’re excited to have Kevin finish his career at SMU. As we all know, he’s born and raised in Dallas and South Oak Cliff, and now to SMU. And he’s everything that’s right about college football. He’s a phenomenal young man. He’s a great ambassador for Dallas and for SMU, and at the same time, he’s really good at football. So a lot of confidence in him and excited just to watch him play. I think what he’s done over his time here, he comes into this season as pretty much top five in just about every major statistical category in returning Power Four starting quarterbacks, and so I think the Heisman talk is warranted. I think usually Heisman winners and people that are in contention at the end of the year for the Heisman go to the best players on the best teams. So for us to help him get into that position, we got to win enough games as a team. But if we’re able to win as a team, compete for the ACC championship, compete for a playoff spot again, then I don’t think there’s any question he’ll be right up there at the top in contention for that. But it’s always good having an experienced winning starting quarterback, and we’re thankful to have him.
How are you handling the new landscape of college football? It seems every week there’s something new for coaches to deal with, now it’s pros coming back to play college and a bunch of courtroom action and it just seems insane from the outside looking in.
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Lashlee: It’s pretty chaotic. I mean, when every three or four months something that is unprecedented happens, you just keep thinking, well, there can’t be anything else, and then something else happens, and so you worry about what you can control. You worry about getting your team ready. Thankfully at this point we’re into season time and it’s like how do we win with this team, but you’re still having to juggle all that as you build and sustain a program and, whatever the rules are, they do change constantly, we just try to adjust the best we can. I do think it’s continuing, I think, to be more and more evident to everyone that we have to have some stability in college football. It’s so good. It’s so popular. Everybody loves it. I mean, there’s the NFL and there’s college football, and then there’s a distant third in our country, and it’s awesome. And there’s so many new things over the last four or five years that have been great for players and student athletes and fans. But it doesn’t matter how good the product is and what we have, if we don’t have stability, we don’t have rules, we don’t have some sense of guidelines we can all follow competitively. And until we get that, this is going to continue. So I always hesitate to be in a position where we say we’re hopeful the government could step in and help us. But it’s kind of gotten to that point that, hopefully in September they can pass this resolution that won’t be perfect, and there’s probably things in it that everybody won’t love. But there’s far more good than bad in it, and at the end of the day, we just need some sort of stability and rules so we all know what they are and we can follow them. And we’re not going to different courts in different states constantly and letting them run college football.
You’re more consumed with making a gameplan, but do they feel the same way that it will take something from the outside to put parameters on the whole thing?
Lashlee: Yeah, I think we all feel like that’s really, at this point, where it’s gotten to over the last couple of years, that’s really our only hope at this point. I mean, just at the end of July, we’re at ACC Media Days, we weren’t thinking there was any way possible guys would be returning from the NFL. So that’s just another thing that’s changed in over a month, and so it’s just more and more, I think, validation that we need something, and if we’re not going to have any form of collective bargaining like they have in the professional ranks, then government giving some antitrust protection and just kind of creating some federal legislation that gives us laws that abide in all 50 states across all programs, so we can at least have consistent framework and rules.
There are a few coaches that’ll take guys back from the NFL. I take it you’re not one of those?
Lashlee: We’re not going to. At the end of the day, what are the rules, right? Like if someone takes a player back off a practice squad right now, I’m not going to think that they’re unethical or do anything wrong because that’s what the courts have said they can do. So it’s our job to win games and form a competitive roster. We just don’t happen to be in a position where we have a need. We did have some players that were in that role and would probably love to come back. We just didn’t have space and a need. The only player that at this point from any kind of legality we’re taking back is Ahmaad Moses, who got a temporary restraining order last week. But Ahmaad would have been about a third- or a fourth-round pick last year, went to the NFL combine, had to end up having neck surgery. That kind of was bad timing for him. So he didn’t get drafted. He hasn’t been in a camp. He’s been given a fifth year. Now he’s going to hopefully get medically cleared this week. And if he can play this year, we’d love to have him. But also, it’s good for him because if he can have a healthy year, he probably will get drafted next year. But he’s not a player that’s returning off of an NFL roster.
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You had to make some additions to your coaching staff, including Southlake Carroll coach Riley Dodge, who is a lifer when it comes to football. He’s your tight ends coach, but he’s also your passing game coordinator. Are you incorporating some new concepts to your passing game this year? Is it going to have a different look to it this year when you throw the ball?
Lashlee: [Our staff was going through] some transition, and it allowed for us to bring in people like Riley Dodge from Southlake Carroll and Kyle Ward from South Oak Cliff, which were two of the best high school coaches, not only in the state of Texas, but in America, and their track records are really just incredible. And so Kyle brings us, he’s arguably the best defensive coach in the state of Texas over the last five years, now he’s coaching our corners, and then Riley, which you referred to, coming in, he’s been a head coach. He’s called plays between him and his dad. I mean, their track record of success over the last several decades in this state speaks for itself. He’s a great fit for our staff. He fits culturally. He fits, him and his family. Just who he is, they fit what we do, and that’s important to us here. But yeah, I mean, we’ve been successful on offense, so we’re not going to come in and overhaul things. We’re going to continue to do what’s worked, but we’re always trying to get better and evolve. And I don’t think you can ever get stale and stay the same. And so, whether it’s the D’Eriq King taking on a different role as a as a co-coordinator and with Garin Justice, and we still have Kyle Cooper and Rob Likens here who contribute a bunch, but then bringing in Riley, who learns what we do, and then can try to take the stuff he’s done over time and his experiences, and mesh that with what we do to try to help us continue to evolve and be as good as we can. To the naked eye, I don’t know if it’ll look a whole lot different, but yeah, there’ll be some wrinkles here or there, and Riley and everybody on that staff have a lot to do with that.