Rhett Lashlee calls Week 0 vs. Nevada the most undisciplined game SMU has played in his tenure

SMU Mustangs head coach Rhett Lashlee called out his team for its lack of discipline against the Nevada Wolf Pack in Week 0, which he called the most undisciplined game the team has played during his tenure there.

Finishing the game with 11 penalties for 125 yards, Lashlee explained following the game that Nevada deserves credit but the Mustangs also made it very difficult on themselves at times.

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“Hard fought win, give Jeff [Choate] and his crew a ton of credit, man,” Rhett Lashlee said . “They came out ready to play. They kicked our tail for a good half or more of the game. I think he’s going to do a really good job here. He’s got a toughness to him. You could feel it in their team. I think the future is bright with him here leading those guys. Not the kind of football we want to play. That probably is the most undisciplined game we’ve played since I’ve been the head coach here. Not proud of that. I think we had 11 penalties for over 100 yards that were accepted.”

Both teams struggled with penalties in what turned out to be a somewhat chippy game. Nevada had 11 penalties of its own for 81 yards. Meanwhile, SMU had defensive back Brandon Crossley ejected for what the referees described as spitting on an opponent. In another moment, there was a moment of chaos following players striking one another. This is all coming off the 2023 season when Lashlee’s team was 17th in FBS in penalty yardage with only 41.2 yards of penalties per game.

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In the end, SMU was able to survive the game and earn its first win of the 2024 season. Still, the discipline will need to improve moving forward.

“Some really self-inflicted wounds. It made it really hard on our offense for about really the first half to get any kind of momentum or anything going because as soon as we get a first down, it felt like we were in 2nd and 15 or 2nd and 20 and 1st and 20 because of penalties we had,” Lashlee said.

“But we found a way to win the fourth quarter, I think, down two scores, ball on the 2-yard line with around two minutes to go. Guys dug deep. So, it’s not always how you win, it’s that we won and we’re 1-0.”

In Week 1, SMU will return to Dallas for a game against Houston Christian .

Rhett Lashlee addresses Brandon Crossley’s ejection

Following the game, Rhett Lashlee addressed Brandon Crossley’s ejection for spitting. It’s something that he says, Crossley denied happened.

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

“We got to be better than that. We’ve got to have composure. There’s a difference between playing with passion and emotion. We were emotional a lot tonight. We got to be passionate, big difference.”

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