SMU Offense Lethargic Against North Texas

SMU‘s 45-0 loss against Baylor was painful to watch, but its performance against the North Texas Mean Green was downright embarrassing.

The Mustangs looked completely overmatched throughout the 43-6 drubbing handed to them by the Mean Green; the 37-point margin of victory was North Texas’ largest ever against SMU. While there were many discouraging aspects of the Mustangs’ performance on Saturday, nothing was as disheartening as the offense’s inability to get anything going.

A week after they were held to 67 yards of total offense by the Baylor Bears, the Mustangs only mustered up 274 total yards against the Mean Green. While it was an improvement from the Baylor game, SMU’s offense still didn’t look anything like a typical June Jones squad that rack up yards seemingly at will. Quarterbacks Neal Burcham, Kolney Cassel and Matt Davis combined to throw for 266 yards (the Mustangs averaged 341.4 passing yards per game in 2013) with Burcham also tossing two interceptions.

SMU also rushed for only eight yards on the game, bringing it total to an FBS-worst -16 rushing yards through two games. To put that into perspective (though it pretty much speaks for itself), no other team is in the red in rushing yards. AAC foe Cincinnati has more rushing yards than the Mustangs in 2014, and it hasn’t even played a game yet.

Any team that employs the run-and-shoot offense is never expecting to run all over its opponent, but being in the negative after two games is practically unheard of. And while one would expect the passing game to pick up the slack when a team’s rushing attack is essentially non-existent, especially in a June Jones offense, SMU hasn’t looked impressive in that department either.

The Mustangs have thrown for a total of 357 yards through their first two contests; former quarterback Garrett Gilbert eclipsed the 357-yard mark in four of his 10 starts in 2013. North Texas even came close to shutting out the Mustangs for the third time in four games (no June Jones-coached team had even been shut out before last year), but a 33-yard touchdown pass from Cassel to wide receiver Nate Halverson on the last play of the game finally got them on the board for the first time in 2014.

Some credit has to be given to the Mean Green defense and special teams, as they pinned SMU inside its own 10-yard line on five occasions on punts and kickoffs during the game. But even then, SMU’s offense was almost completely stagnant; the Mustangs didn’t even successfully convert a single third- or fourth-down conversion until their final drive.

While Jones’ team was expected to go through growing pains in 2014 and has to deal with a grueling non-conference schedule, it’s probably safe to say that not too many were expecting them to be outscored 88-6 through their first two games of the season.