Photo by Lindsey Perkins, The Daily Campus SMU tailback DeMyron Martin carries the ball against the Texas State Cougars last Saturday night. Martin has rushed for 72 yards this season on 15 carries.
The Mustangs will face their toughest challenge of the season tomorrow as they travel to Lubbock to take on No. 12 Texas Tech.
The Red Raiders have dominated SMU, winning each of the last 12 meetings, including five times since 2002. The past two seasons Texas Tech has outscored SMU 84-12.
“Defensively, it’s very difficult in college football to stop anybody anymore – the offenses are all over the place, and you see everything,” head coach June Jones said. “What you have to do to win, until you get good in every area – you have to take the ball away and create things on defense. We didn’t do that against Rice. This week, it was the difference in the game, as far as I’m concerned.”
Rice and Texas State combined for a 71 percent success rate on third down conversions. That will have to change against Texas Tech if the Mustangs look to stay in the game. Tech has converted 50 percent of their third down tries, but has held opponents to just 19 percent.
Quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell looked more comfortable against Texas State, but it could be a different story against Tech’s defense. The Raiders have given up 852 yards in two games, but that only helped them to achieve 1060 yards of their own.
Last week against Texas State, receivers Aldrick Robinson and Emmanuel Sanders combined for 310 yards and five touchdowns. Jones said that he saw something click with them the week before in practice and saw results on the field. Tech has two receivers averaging over 100 yards a game as well.
Michael Crabtree and Detron Lewis provide the top two options for quarterback Graham Harrell. Eric Morris, with 172 yards and Tramain Swindall with 99 yards add two more options for a loaded Tech offense.
Even though Mitchell looked more confident throwing the ball, 13 incompletions out of 37 attempts could mean trouble for SMU. With both teams averaging over 95 passes a game combined and only 39 rushing attempts the three-hour game against Texas State and the three and a half hour game against Rice could seem like quick games.
Kickoff is at 6 p.m. and the game is televised on Fox Sports Net.
