After a year full of “almosts” and “could-have-beens,” the Mustangs are focused and ready to make a statement on the football field this season.

It’s a statement that they all believe, and now all wear. Each member of the 2007 SMU Mustangs football team has one. It is one of the plastic wristbands that you see almost everywhere you turn. But none of them take it lightly.

The wristbands have the letters “WWNBD” and a mustang in red on them. And if you see a football player around campus, you can be sure he is wearing it. It stands for “We Will Not Be Denied” which is the unofficial slogan for this years’ team.

“The wristband brought us together more than anything,” Emmanuel Sanders said. “He’s got a wristband, that makes him a part of me and me a part of him.”

It is a constant reminder to both players and coaches that they are a part of something with a lot of potential to do some great things this season. When one hears the slogan it doesn’t take much to have the image of last season’s Rice game appear. Two times the Mustangs were at the goal line and were unable to score a touchdown.

“I think they came up with [the slogan] after our Rice game,” head coach Phil Bennett said. “And I told them sometimes your most devastating defeats, if you handle them right, learn from them, can turn into some of your greatest victories.”

That is what the Mustangs are hoping as they get ready to start the 2007 season in less than a week.

“We will not be denied, it’s just plain and simple,” Sanders said. “We will not be denied.”

Bennett said that he’s not a big fan of gimmicks, but players came to him saying that they wanted a way to show their commitment to the team.

“As a team they wanted to do that,” Bennett said. “It was their call and I thought they did put some thought process in what they wanted.”

The Mustangs will have a tough task standing before them when they open the season Sept. 3 against Texas Tech.