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By Brooke Calloway , RF Sports Radio SMU voice Pony Up. It was not pretty, and it did not have to be. SMU met the ACC's best pass defense, did not get its usual fireworks, and still left Ford Stadium with a 10-point win, a milestone and a home streak that keeps growing. The facts No. 24 SMU beat Virginia 23-13 on Saturday, Oct. 17, at Gerald J. Ford Stadium, per SMU Athletics and the AP. The Mustangs are 5-1 and 3-1 in the ACC; Virginia fell to 4-3 and 2-2. SMU is now 10-0 at home in ACC games since joining the league in 2024. Kevin Jennings went 23-of-36 for 246 yards and two touchdowns, with no interceptions, and added 26 rushing yards. His 272 yards of total offense pushed his career total to 10,197, extending the program record, per SMU's postgame notes. His two TD passes give him 71 for his career, tied with Ben Hicks for second in school history, one behind Tanner Mordecai. Kendrick Raphael ran 22 times for 124 yards, his second 100-yard game of the season. T...

By Brooke Calloway , RF Sports Radio SMU voice Pony Up. Saturday morning is still about Kevin Jennings and five digits, but the tape is about something colder: Virginia's secondary against the ACC's loudest passing attack, inside a stadium where ACC visitors have not won since SMU joined the league. The facts No. 24 SMU (4-1, 2-1 ACC), also No. 22 in the coaches poll, hosts Virginia (4-2, 2-1 ACC) on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 11 a.m. Central at Gerald J. Ford Stadium on The CW, per Virginia Athletics and SMU. It is a Salute to Service / Stripe Out date. Jennings has 9,925 career total yards and needs 75 to reach 10,000 , per CBS Sports. He has thrown for about 1,588 yards and 14 touchdowns in five games, per Virginia media quotes on SI. Since joining the ACC in 2024, SMU is 9-0 against conference foes at Ford Stadium, and ACC schools are 0-9 in Dallas . Virginia is seeking its first road win of 2026 and its first ranked win of the year. The 2024 meeting was SMU 33-7. The s...

By Brooke Calloway , RF Sports Radio SMU voice Pony Up. Sometime late Saturday morning at Gerald J. Ford Stadium, Kevin Jennings is likely to cross a five-digit career milestone. The bigger question is whether he does it against the stingiest pass defense in the ACC. The facts Jennings has 9,925 career total yards and needs 75 more to reach 10,000 , per CBS Sports. He already holds SMU school records for passing yards (9,297), completions (742) and touchdowns responsible for (81). He ranks third in FBS in passing yards per game at 317.6. No. 24 SMU (4-1, 2-1 ACC), also No. 22 in the coaches poll, hosts Virginia on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 11 a.m. Central at Ford Stadium on The CW, per SMU Athletics. It is a Salute to Service and Stripe Out game. The Mustangs are 3-0 at home. Virginia is 4-2 and 2-1 in ACC play, but 0-2 away from home this season. SMU won the 2024 meeting 33-7. The matchup problem is real. Virginia allows an ACC-low 161.8 passing yards per game and has intercep...

By Brooke Calloway , RF Sports Radio SMU voice Pony Up. The ranking held at No. 24. Saturday will decide whether that number still feels like momentum or like a target Virginia came to steal. The facts SMU is No. 24 in the Associated Press Top 25 at 4-1 with 142 points after the Oct. 11 poll, and No. 22 in the coaches poll, per CBS Sports and College Poll Archive mirrors. The Mustangs host Virginia on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 11 a.m. Central at Gerald J. Ford Stadium on The CW, per SMU Athletics. Both clubs sit 2-1 in ACC play; Virginia enters at 4-2 overall. Radio coverage is listed on KTCK and SiriusXM through the SMU gameday notes. SMU's week-to-week identity has not changed since the Mustangs climbed back into the twenties: explosive enough to hang with the league's better offenses, messy enough that turnover margin and penalties keep turning comfortable home dates into stress tests. Local and conference previews for Virginia week keep returning to the same two them...

By Brooke Calloway , RF Sports Radio SMU voice Pony Up. The ranking held. The standard did not get easier. Saturday at Ford Stadium will decide whether No. 24 still feels like a badge or a burden. The facts SMU is No. 24 in the Associated Press poll at 4-1 with 142 points after the Oct. 11 poll, per College Poll Archive. The Mustangs host Virginia on Saturday, Oct. 17, around 11 a.m. Central on The CW at Gerald J. Ford Stadium. Legion Report and the ACC slate have framed this as a must-clean-it-up home date after a season in which turnover margin and penalties have been the recurring concern against Virginia's more disciplined profile. The path to No. 24 is familiar: strong offensive outputs mixed with self-inflicted wounds in tighter ACC spots. Varsity Slate's game page for SMU-Virginia lists the home kick and the broadcast window. For a fan base that wants a New Year's Six path, Saturday is less about style points and more about finishing drives without giving ...

By Brooke Calloway , RF Sports Radio SMU voice Pony Up. The bye week didn't cost SMU its spot in the poll, but it didn't win the Mustangs any new fans either. The facts SMU stayed at No. 24 in Sunday's AP Top 25 at 4-1, per the AP poll published by the Chicago Sun-Times. The College Poll Archive shows SMU's point total slipped from 167 to 142 and lists the Mustangs at No. 22 in the coaches poll. The ranking path tells the story. SMU opened at No. 19, climbed to No. 16 after beating UC Davis 56-10, dropped to No. 22 after a 41-31 loss at Louisville, and has been No. 24 for two straight weeks. Only three ACC teams are ranked: No. 3 Miami, No. 21 Wake Forest and SMU. The AP's preview, published by the Las Vegas Sun, says SMU opened as a 7.5-point favorite over Virginia (4-2). The offense numbers look like a top-25 team. SMU averages 484.2 yards a game, 12th in FBS, and 346.0 passing yards, third in the country. Kevin Jennings has 1,613 yards, 14 touchdowns and...

Pony Up. SMU sat out Saturday, so the most important game for the Mustangs was in Charlottesville, where next week's opponent had to come from behind. Virginia beat Syracuse 28-25 on a rainy homecoming night at Scott Stadium, per VirginiaSports.com's Jeff White. The Cavaliers scored on their opening drive, then gave up 17 straight points and trailed 17-7 at halftime. The comeback started late in the third quarter. Beau Pribula hit Kent State transfer Da'Shawn Martin for a 43-yard touchdown, and Jekail Middlebrook scored twice in the fourth quarter on direct snaps from the 3 and the 5. That 21-0 run, in about 12 minutes, put Virginia up 11. Syracuse scored late, but its last drive died on downs with 17 seconds left. "I'm not apologizing for winning, bottom line," Tony Elliott said. Still, the numbers tell SMU a lot. Syracuse outgained Virginia 430-288 and had the ball for 35:07 to Virginia's 24:53, and the Orange did it while starting their No. 3 qua...

Pony Up. The Mustangs don't play this Saturday, but their quarterback is still picking up hardware buzz. Kevin Jennings is one of 15 quarterbacks still in the running for the 2026 Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, the foundation announced this week, cutting down an original 27-player watch list. SMU's release says Jennings ranks first in the ACC and third nationally in both total passing yards (1,588) and passing yards per game (317.6) . He's also third in the conference and fifth in the country with a 75% completion rate, and he's guided SMU to a 4-1 start. The South Oak Cliff product already owns SMU's career records for total offense (9,925), completions (742), touchdowns responsible for (81) and passing yards (9,297) . Among active FBS quarterbacks, SMU says he's eighth in total offense, seventh in touchdowns responsible for and sixth in passing yards. The foundation singled him out in its announcement, saying Jennings "has continued to add to his o...

Pony Up: no SMU game this Saturday, so let's scout the team coming to the Hilltop next. SMU (4-1, 2-1 ACC) slipped three spots to No. 24 in Sunday's AP poll after what the AP called an "uninspired home win over Boston College." The Mustangs are idle this week, then host Virginia on Oct. 17 at 11 a.m. Central on The CW, per On3. Rhett Lashlee is 42-17 at SMU and unbeaten in ACC home games, and five of the next six are in Dallas. "We're about to play seven straight Power Four games on the back end," Lashlee said. "So, we got to rest up, we got to use this week for what it is." Virginia plays Saturday night. The Cavaliers (3-2, 1-1 ACC) host Syracuse at 7:30 p.m. Eastern, 6:30 Central, on ACC Network for Homecoming, coming off a 38-7 loss at Florida State . Tony Elliott, in his fifth season, didn't sugarcoat it: "It was a rough day at the office for all of us. We're going to take accountability for it." Virginia's relea...

Pony Up: 4-1 at the bye is a good spot, but the Boston College game left a real to-do list. As Timothy Hamm writes for Yahoo Sports, SMU managed just 218 total yards in the 25-16 win, with only 58 on the ground and 160 through the air. Kevin Jennings was a clean 20-of-30 with two touchdowns and no picks, but the Mustangs averaged only 3.5 yards per play. Kendrick Raphael led the team with 45 rushing yards, and SMU averaged just 1.8 yards per carry . That's a long way from an offense that came in averaging more than 500 yards a game through the first four. Then there's the kicking. The Dallas Morning News counts five kicks over the last two games that were missed or never got off — three extra points and two field goals — and SMU is just 3-for-7 on field goals this season. The problems have come from snaps, holds and kicks, and the Mustangs hope starter Nick Reed is healthy after the bye. Starting center Joshua Bates also went down with an ankle injury in the third quarte...

  Pony Up — the off week is here, and now we know when the Mustangs get back to work at Ford. The ACC announced Monday that Virginia's Oct. 17 visit to SMU will kick off at noon ET — 11 a.m. CT — on The CW. It's the second all-time meeting and the first in Dallas; SMU won 33-17 at Scott Stadium in 2024. Virginia's athletics site notes SMU (4-1, 2-1 ACC) brings a seven-game home win streak dating to Oct. 4, 2025, and is 16-3 in ACC play since joining in 2024, the most league wins in that span. Both teams already have a conference loss, so SI's Virginia site calls it, at best, an elimination game for the ACC title race. Virginia (3-2, 1-1) is coming off a 38-7 loss at Florida State. For SMU, Kevin Jennings has 1,588 passing yards and 14 touchdowns , and Kendrick Raphael has 418 rushing yards and six scores. Rhett Lashlee liked the BC formula: "What we did that we haven't done for four games, we made ourselves hard to beat." Follow SMU Football throu...

University Park, the win is in the books — the film session might sting more than the scoreboard. No. 21 SMU (3-1) beat Missouri State 34-24 behind Kevin Jennings’ 33-of-39, 464-yard, three-TD night (school-record 21 straight completions), but Rhett Lashlee’s crew spotted the Bears a 10-0 hole on turnovers, missed two field goals, and failed an early fourth down. Nine turnovers through four games. Still haven’t won the giveaway battle against an FBS opponent. That math gets expensive in ACC play. Next: Boston College at Gerald J. Ford Stadium, Saturday, Oct. 3, 11 a.m. CT on The CW — SMU’s ACC home opener. The Eagles are 2-2 after a 21-14 home loss to Virginia Tech. SMU leads the recent series and opened as a heavy favorite, but local hosts will hammer ball security all week. If the SMU Football (https://rfsportsradio.blogspot.com/search/label/SMU%20Football) offense stays clean, the firepower is there. If it doesn’t, Saturday’s mess becomes a blueprint for how to derail a playoff-hope...

University Park is buzzing — and Kevin Jennings just rewrote the SMU record book. No. 22 SMU beat Missouri State 34-24 on Saturday at Ford Stadium. Jennings went 33-of-39 for a career-high 464 yards with three passing TDs (four total TDs) and an interception, becoming the Mustangs' career passing leader. He also set program marks for career completions and touchdowns responsible for, including a school-record 21 straight completions in the game. Yamir Knight (11 catches, 164 yards, TD) and Jalen Cooper (eight for 125) feasted. SMU piled up 592 total yards and seven sacks. The Mustangs moved up to No. 21 in the AP poll (No. 19 coaches) and sit 3-1. The caveat every local host will hammer: turnovers. SMU has nine giveaways through four games and still hasn't won the turnover battle against an FBS foe. Next: Boston College at Ford Stadium, Saturday, 11 a.m. CT — first ACC home game. Sources: SMU Athletics ; CBS Sports / AP . — RF Sports Radio More SMU Football — RF Sports Radio Un...