Good Article from TECH - it's called Turnovers

[GoRedGoBlue]

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An old nemesis visited the Southern Methodist football team Saturday night.

His name: Mr. Turnover.

The Mustangs ranked 97th out of 117 NCAA Division I squads last season with a turnover margin of negative-12. They took their first step of repeating that feat Saturday in their 2003 season opener against Texas Tech at Jones SBC Stadium.

SMU turned the ball over four times against the Red Raiders, including a fumble in the first quarter that swung the momentum of the game and set the foundation for a 58-10 Tech drubbing.

"I'm real disappointed, because I thought we had a chance to make it a more competitive game," SMU coach Phil Bennett said. "But things just started snowballing, and then (Tech) got going."

It was the key fumble that first put things in motion. SMU took an early 3-0 lead when Chris McMurtray capped an impressive 13-play, 65-yard drive with a 42-yard field goal. The Mustangs looked like they would put more points on the board on their second possession, as they drove to midfield before Keylon Kincade fumbled the ball over to Tech's Brock Stratton.

The ball looked to be punched out by a Tech defensive lineman, but Kincade said after the game he never had a good handle on the ball from the get-go.

Whatever the source, the Mustangs weren't the same after the turnover.

"We shouldn't have let it bother us, but we really had a tough time keeping our composure and poise," SMU quarterback Richard Bartel said. "That was a big play, and things just seemed to go downhill from there."

Tech turned the fumble into a 3-yard touchdown run by Taurean Henderson, sparking a run of 38 unanswered points. The Mustangs didn't stop the bleeding until Bartel hit Matt Rushbrook for a 9-yard touchdown pass early in the fourth quarter, but by that time the score was already 38-10.

The Raiders sliced the young SMU defense both through the air and on the ground en route to finishing with 437 yards. The biggest problem for the Mustangs was putting pressure on Tech quarterback B.J. Symons, who threw for 297 yards and three touchdowns in his first career start.

"I'm an offensive guy, but I could even judge from the sidelines that their front guys were doing a great job," said Bartel, who tallied 195 yards threw the air along with three interceptions. "They're huge and they know how to use it. They know how to work with what their mamma gave them."

Bennett also was upset with the performance of his special teams.

The Mustangs gave up 131 yards in kickoff returns and another 63 in punt returns, including a 50-yard punt return for a touchdown by Wes Welker late in the game.

"That wasn't real smart by us to kick to him, but we had been doing a good job of containing him before that," Bennett said. "I was just really disappointed with our special teams."

[Charleston Pony]

When the wheels come off after an early fumble like that, I guess it just reminds us all how fragile this team is. Everyone knew coming in that SMU would need to play a near perfect game to have any chance. Is this team so fragile that a single fumble told them (mentally) they had just blown that chance?

[Waters]

I think it had more to do with the other team on the field getting comfortable and grinding us into the rug.