DALLAS — The SMU Mustangs are venturing into the unknown Saturday, and I don’t just mean trying to find University Park on a map, which is a challenge of its own. This is something completely different.
For years, one loud chorus of voices shouted that college football needed a real playoff like every other college or professional league. It took awhile, but the shouters won and the bowl system is merely on life support, a conduit to a 12-team playoff that begins with four games this weekend. At the same time, other voices were shouting (and arguing fairly in court) that players deserved to be paid at least for their name, image and likeness, as long as they were generating literally billions of dollars for colleges, coaches, administrators and bowl officials. And they eventually won, too.
So while SMU is hoping not to repeat its awful start in the ACC Championship game in Charlotte, Penn State fans are hoping this doesn’t go down in history as the Ethan Grunkemeyer Game.
You see, at the same time these games of massive importance are being played, a thousand players (give or take) have jumped into the transfer portal because this is their only time to seek opportunities elsewhere without waiting until late April. There is money to be made in that portal, and in this case it includes the backup quarterbacks for both teams. However, if Kevin Jennings were to miss a few plays with an injury, Preston Stone, last year’s starter now reportedly considering Northwestern, is still on the roster and would be there to step in.
Penn State coach James Franklin made a rule that players in the portal would not be eligible for the postseason, and although he would have been willing to waive it for backup quarterback Beau Pribula — who rescued Penn State when Drew Allar was hurt against Wisconsin — the two chose not to. So if something happens to Allar again, it will be time for Ethan Grunkemeyer, a freshman who has not taken a college snap.
One hopes the game isn’t reduced to backup quarterbacks, and it probably won’t be, but it points to the precarious position these teams are in and the complete unknown that is being ventured into. For that matter, with students on holiday break and these games not part of the season-ticket package, are we certain Beaver Stadium will be packed with more than 100,000 fans as is the custom?
SMU has to assume that will be the case, and Jennings just needs a lot better start than he had against Clemson, when his first-quarter fumble and interception fueled the Tigers’ early lead. The Mustangs fought all the way back to tie, lost on a last-second bomb of a field goal and now hope to prove they are worthy competition for a blue blood program like Penn State.
There’s reason to think they are.
The knock on the Mustangs, after going 8-0 in their first year of ACC play, is that they have no signature wins. The best teams they beat that were ranked earlier in the season — Louisville and Pitt — did not stay ranked at the finish line. Well, the same can be said for the Texas Longhorns, the Indiana Hoosiers and, yes, the Nittany Lions.
Are Penn State’s victories over Illinois and Minnesota (the two highest Big Ten finishers they defeated) more meaningful than those Mustang victories against Louisville and Pitt? We are about to find out. You could take the two quarterbacks in this game and switch their stats for the 2024 season, and no one would know the difference. Penn State’s Allar, a 6-foot-5 two-year starter, threw for 2,894 yards, 21 touchdowns and seven interceptions. Jennings, in his first college season, threw for 3,050 yards, 22 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
“They go as he goes,” Franklin said of Jennings. “He’s an explosive athlete, can make all the throws but also can pull it down and run, can really run.”
Jennings has passed just about every test since becoming a starter — the Clemson game is his only defeat this year — but this one will look different. SMU has won on the road, but Happy Valley is known as one of the great home fields in college football. Penn State lost one game there this season, and it was to Ohio State by seven points.
With coach Rhett Lashlee doing a masterful job of operating the transfer portal the last two years, has SMU climbed high enough to take down Penn State in a playoff game in its backyard?
There’s no records to cite for clues here. This never has happened. We are entering a strange new world of college football. But no matter how it plays out, we can say that in the first 12-team playoff, the SMU Mustangs earned an invitation. It’s something schools like Alabama, Oklahoma, LSU, Michigan and USC only wish they had.