SMU’s Derrius Bell attempts to free himself from an official’s grasp Saturday night at Ford Stadium after a scuffle with Southern Mississippi’s DeAndre Brown. Both players were ejected from the game. (Lindsey Perkins)
The Mustangs completed their second 1-11 season in a row on Saturday in a 28-12 loss at Ford Stadium.
SMU held close in the first half after giving up a touchdown to Southern Miss on its opening drive. Those would be the only seven points the Golden Eagles would score in the first half, the fewest points allowed by the Mustangs in the first half all season.
With two Thomas Morstead field goals, 40 and 43 yards, SMU was just down 7-6 at halftime.
But the defense couldn’t hold in the second half and didn’t get much help from the offense. SMU had just six total offense yards in the third quarter and an interception thrown by Bo Levi Mitchell that led to Southern Miss’ fourth and final touchdown of the game.
The Mustangs finally got into the end zone with just under six minutes left in the game when Mitchell connected with former quarterback Justin Willis on a four-yard touchdown pass. SMU attempted a two-point conversion, but was stopped short of the goal line.
Mitchell finished the game completing 26 of 49 passes for 253 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. He ended the season throwing 24 touchdown passes and 23 interceptions.
Willis led all receivers with 11 catches for 88 yards and the touchdown.
“I know for me, just to come from what I did till now shows what I’ve always been about,” Willis said. “No matter whether I was playing quarterback or playing receiver whatever I did I always did it full speed with a smile.”
The touchdown catch was the first of his career and set the school record for most touchdowns responsible with 58. Willis has 51 career passing touchdowns, six rushing touchdowns and one receiving touchdown.
The other record setter was SMU’s kickoff return specialist Jessie Henderson, who set the NCAA record for most career kickoff return yards with 2,945.
Henderson needed just 45 yards coming into Saturday’s game and got 64.
“I was proud for him,” SMU head coach June Jones said. “I told him as soon as he got it I was going to let him have one more kick and then let B.J. Lee in there.”
Jones didn’t want to take him out too early in case there was a computing error and Henderson hadn’t actually gotten the record.
“People on the sideline were asking me how many yards I need,” Henderson said. “I really didn’t know and I really didn’t care because I just go out there and do my job each time.”
After winning the second game of the season the Mustangs went on to lose the final 10 games of the year, going 0-6 on the road and 0-8 in Conference USA.
“We are focused, we know what we have to do and we will win here,” Jones said. “We’ll get it done and it will be a beautiful thing for the whole city of Dallas and the whole SMU community when we do.”
