SMU Set as Heavy Favorites Against Nevada in Season Opener
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00:00S. M. U. will head out to Reno as nearly a four touchdown
00:08favorite to take on Nevada. Joe, a new era out there in Reno
00:12for the Wolfpack. New head coach, Jeff Cho. He was the
00:15former co-defensive coordinator the past three seasons in
00:18Austin at Texas and he takes over a Wolfpack program that
00:22has won just two games each of the past two seasons. A 27 and
00:27a half point spread in favor of S. M. U. Last year, an 11-win
00:31football team and the champions of the American. From the AAC
00:35to the ACC, what's your expectation for this week's
00:39zero opener? Well, very high. I think they're gonna hit the
00:41ground running and again, they have a veteran quarterback in
00:44terms of Preston Stone that did complete 60% of his passes.
00:47Ben, 32 touchdowns, six interceptions. He threw well
00:51over 280 passing yards per game and they were very balanced but
00:54that defense, Ben, by S. M. U. is probably the biggest
00:59strength of this team heading into 2024. They held opposing
01:02offenses to seventeen points per game and more importantly,
01:06have only 28% on third down defense. They're gonna give
01:10Preston Stone possibly multiple opportunities to score
01:14points and for Brendan Lewis in Nevada, I think the only way
01:17they can cover this number is if they run the football,
01:20shorten the game, get it into the fourth quarter, and
01:23hopefully they'll have a chance. We'll see how this
01:25plays out. I think SMU wins but I like Nevada with the points.
01:29Yeah, so I'm on Nevada as well plus the twenty-seven. I think
01:31that they're an interesting team. You mentioned Choate
01:33coming over. He brings Crawford from Texas in the secondary.
01:35They've got a kid coming over from Wisconsin and and a kid
01:37who played at Cal a little bit in the front end there. I think
01:40they can be a little bit better than than what people are
01:42expecting. I wonder if part of the reason I'm also on Nevada
01:44is me being lower on SMU than the market and and certainly
01:48the expectations into ACC play. You know, with the alignment,
01:53realignment, we talk so much about the future of the sport
01:55and then the big teams and that a team like SMU is easy to get
01:58lost in the shuffle but this is a team that has win totals and
02:02futures prices that say if a dark horse is going to win the
02:05ACC, it might just be this team and I get that in in one end
02:08but but on the other end, nothing about last year's group
02:11suggests they could hang at the power five level. Now, the
02:14power four level, they were smashed by TCU. I wouldn't even
02:16bring up the Oklahoma game, the ball game against Boston
02:19College. I know it's a ball game. They were nearly a two
02:22touchdown favorite. They were smashed in that as well. Preston
02:25Stone against OU and TCU, his yards per attempt dropped over
02:30three yards which is monstrous. His completion percentage was
02:33under 60%. So, I look at SMU and again, this may not apply
02:38today. Maybe I'll get burned for backing Nevada with some of
02:40this in this spot but from a big picture perspective, who's
02:44to say SMU doesn't line up as a middle of the road ACC team?