SMU wide receiver Cole Beasley bobbles a pass from quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell at the end of the fourth quarter in a 37-31 loss to Tulsa University. (Lindsey Perkins)

The Mustangs gave Tulsa their biggest challenge of the season Saturday night, but still came up short 37-31, dropping the Mustangs to 1-6 this season.

SMU’s defense held the Golden Hurricane to their lowest point total of the season, while the offense scored the second most points on the Tulsa defense this year. A team that has averaged a point margin of 31.6 points this season only won by six.

Even with all of that, the Mustangs couldn’t pull off their second win of the season.

“That’s the first game we’ve played 60 minutes,” head coach June Jones said. “And hung in there till the end. That’s what you’ve got to do right now to win games.”

Against Tulane SMU played a solid second half, but it wasn’t enough to overcome their first half deficit. Against UCF the Mustangs got an early lead in the first half, but weren’t able to hold onto it in the second half. Saturday night the Mustangs got an early lead and kept it almost to the end.

One thing helping that was the running game. For the first time this season the Mustangs rushed the ball for over 100 yards, 151, and had a single rusher pick up almost 100 yards, Chris Butler had 95 yards before leaving with an injury.

That led to the Mustangs holding onto the football for longer periods of time. For only the second time this season, SMU had the ball for over 30 minutes of the game, having more possession time than its opponent.

“We went in thinking we could [run the ball],” Jones said. “And we’ve been working real hard the last two weeks on some of the run stuff so it was good to see it pay off.”

Another thing was the defense of the Mustangs.

The defense forced three punts, three field goal attempts and three turnovers, including two interceptions by Brian McCann.

But in the fourth quarter the Mustangs started to give the game away.

On a fourth-and-21 the Golden Hurricane went for it, and on a deep ball found Trae Johnson 33 yards away in the end zone tying the game at 31.

“We just had our young kid in there,” Jones said. “[Tulsa] made a play and he made a mistake. It’s a freshman, you live and learn, he wont do that again.”

On the first play of the Mustangs’ next drive quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell threw his first and only interception of the game and Tulsa took advantage of it.

In just three plays the Golden Hurricane were back in the end zone, but SMU still had a chance as Youri Yenga blocked his second extra point of the season, and the Mustangs were down by six with eight minutes left.

The Mustangs went three-and-out on their next drive, but forced Tulsa to punt and got the ball back at their own 32-yard line with 3:35 left in the game.

SMU drove to the Tulsa 26-yard line when the drive stalled. Mitchell threw a pass to Cole Beasley, who had eight catches for 94 yards and a touchdown, in the end zone that just hit off Beasley’s hands incomplete. On the following, fourth-and-two play Mitchell’s pass was just out of reach for Emmanuel Sanders and Tulsa had the ball and ran out the clock.

“Obviously we have the skills to do it,” Mitchell said. “It’s just little mistakes that young guys are going to make and that’s OK, that’s going to happen. It’s got to come though.”

Mitchell ended the game completing 19 of 34 passes for 318 yards and four touchdowns to four different receivers. Leading the way was Sanders who caught six passes for 132 yards and a touchdown on a 77-yard pass.

“Bo’s going to be a player and I think the more he sees and the more he’s in it the more he’s going to get, right now he’s just learning it.”

The Mustangs will get their next chance on Saturday against Houston at 7 p.m at Ford Stadium.