SMU Mustangs head football coach Rhett Lashlee joined Shan & RJ to talk about the success his team is having in their first year in the ACC, his thoughts on SMU’s current spot in the CFP rankings, how he’s had success using the transfer portal and more!
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SportsTranscript
00:00A lot of people thought you guys would be good.
00:17Did you expect this though, coach?
00:21You know, I don't know.
00:22I mean, no one's ever kind of gone into a power conference and started 5-0 in the league,
00:28so I can't say I expected it, but I did think we had a team that, we had a lot of guys returning
00:33off of last year's 11-win team, and, you know, we have a good team culture.
00:38They believe in each other.
00:39They love playing together, and they just kind of, they know how to win, and so we really
00:43felt like we had a team that would compete, and, you know, even in year one.
00:47Now, we didn't really know what that would look like, and, you know, they've just gone
00:50out week after week and played really well, and, you know, like I said, I don't think
00:55anybody told our guys we weren't supposed to be contending.
00:58You know, you mentioned the transition into the ACC, and I know y'all played BC in a bowl
01:03game last year, so you kind of got a taste of that, but is the, was the transition about
01:09what you expected from a talent perspective?
01:12Did you notice a big talent weight class that you kind of went up in?
01:16Yeah, I mean, we did play BC in a bowl game last year.
01:20You know, we played TCU in Oklahoma last year.
01:22We played Maryland and TCU the year before.
01:24We've played power conferences, you know, a couple times a year a lot lately, and so
01:31we knew what we were getting into.
01:32I think the adjustment is just week in, week out.
01:36You know, where you play ten straight power four level conference games, like since week
01:41three all the way through the end of the season, it's the same every week, and so that's the
01:46real challenge is the week in, week out, the depth, the physicality.
01:49It's not like you play a couple really good teams, and then you get a couple easy ones.
01:53Every week, you've got to show up, and you've got to play well, or you're going to get beat,
01:57and so I think that's the part we weren't sure of how would we handle that, and you
02:02know, seven games into that stretch, we've handled it really well.
02:05Now we've got to finish.