College football players have a lot of things that draw their attention over the summer. They have to handle their schoolwork while training to make sure they’re in shape for the start of preseason workouts. They study their roles in the offense or defense, learn and re-learn their assignments, and sometimes fret about their spot on the depth chart in the upcoming season.

Chris Banjo said he coped with the loss of his mother in large part because of the support he got from his teammates and coaches (photo by Travis Johnston).

But as the SMU football team toils away in the summer heat, getting ready to build on a 2009 season in which the Mustangs earned their first bowl bid in 25 years — whipping Nevada, 45-10, in the Hawaii Bowl — the things on that list don’t seem nearly as important as they otherwise might to safety Chris Banjo.

That’s not entirely true. He is going to class, he is spending his hours in the weight room and he is getting out on the field and running with his teammates in the Ponies’ voluntary conditioning workouts.

But it certainly is understandable if Banjo’s mind wanders at times; after all, it was just over a month ago — June 5 — that his mother, Yinka, died of sickle cell anemia. She was 45.

“My mom was always sick,” Banjo said, “but she was tough, she was a fighter.

“I remember she had a golf ball-sized blood clot near her heart. Or she’d have liver failure or kidney failure.”

When not in school or at football practice, Banjo spent a lot of time in the hospital with his mother.

“The hospital was like my second home,” he said. “She was the strongest person I ever knew. I’m just grateful to God that we had her with us as long as we did.”

Banjo said he often is asked how he maintained his focus while worrying about his mother.

“People ask that,” he said. “Mom never wanted us to worry about her. To her, my No. 1 thing was school, and then football, because she knows how much I love it.”

Banjo said some of his teammates have felt a little awkward, but he has been moved by the outpouring of support from his teammates and coaches.

“Death is not easy to deal with,” he said. “People react differently, but the guys on this team really embraced me. My roommate, Smitty (safety Ryan Smith) — he came home with me for the funeral. He really embraced me like a brother.”

That he handled the loss of his mother with such grace doesn’t seem like much of a surprise. He badgers teammates constantly during practice, but is universally liked by teammates and coaches alike. He represents the team and SMU well, and not surprisingly, was chosen for the second consecutive year to wear jersey No. 23 in honor of legendary SMU wide receiver Jerry LeVias.

“It was the same overwhelming feeling as it was when I got chosen last year,” Banjo said of the announcement that he would retain LeVias’s jersey number. “To be chosen to honor such a great man, to represent him and the university … it’s just a great honor.”

Not to be lost in the discussion about Banjo’s character is the fact he remains a vital cog in the SMU defense. Head coach June Jones’s aerial passing game might garner many of the headlines, a large part of the reason SMU ended its season in Honolulu was a much-improved defense. Banjo was the team’s second-leading tackler, with 86 stops, and added an interception, recovered one fumble and forced three — numbers made more impressive by the fact that he was never healthy.

Banjo played his entire sophomore season with pain in his groin and right hip. His discomfort comes from the ball at the top of his femur (the bone in the thigh), which has grown bigger than it should, stretching the labrum (a collar of cartilage around the bone). In some places, it has caused small rips and tears in the cartilage.

Banjo said he got through the season thanks to extensive stretching with the Mustangs’ training staff, but admitted that he sometimes alleviated the pain in his hip by over-compensating, thereby adding to the discomfort in his groin. He has considered undergoing surgery, but thus far has chosen not to because of the uncertainty of the results.

“They can do a surgery that basically shaves down the ball at the top of the femur, but no surgery is guaranteed to be successful,” he said. “This one would take three months to come back, and another three months to get back into playing shape. I’m going to continue to pray about it, and talk to the doctors and training staff, but for now, I’m going to see if I can keep playing with the stretching and rest.”

The “rest” Banjo referred to centers around the SMU coaches’ decision to allow him to take plays off in practice, to make sure he’s ready for games.

“Since this started with my groin, I have started to listen to my body more — when I need to sit out, I do,” Banjo said. “I thank God I play for the best coaching staff in America. They understand that different players’ bodies are different. There are some coaching staffs who might call you out or call you a baby or something. These coaches understand what’s going on, and they’re really supportive. They know I want to practice, but they also know it’s a lot more important to be ready on Saturday.”

Banjo was second on the SMU defense with 86 tackles in 2009, and added an interception, three forced fumbles and a fumble recovery (photo by David Mojica).

Although he’ll be just a junior in the fall, Banjo suddenly finds himself feeling like one of the old men on the Ponies’ defense — and not just because of his bad hip. With 25 games in his first two seasons on the Hilltop, including 19 career starts, Banjo now is one of the elder statesmen on a defense that lost five key 2009 seniors: nose tackle Chris Parham, cornerback Bryan McCann, linebacker Chase Kennemer and safeties Bryce Hudman and Rock Dennis.

“Those guys are really talented, and we’re going to miss them,” he said. “It all starts up front with Chris and the defensive line. We’ll miss Bryan’s speed and experience at corner, Rock’s intelligence, and Bryce’s athleticism and versatility.”

Kennemer, Banjo said, leaves perhaps the biggest void in the Ponies’ defense, but Banjo said sophomore-to-be Taylor Reed is capable of filling Kennemer’s role as the team’s leading tackler and as the quarterback of the defense.

“But Chase might be the hardest out of that group to replace. He should have been an All-American. He made plays in every game, because he was always in the right place — his intelligence for the game is amazing. But we’re very lucky to have guys like Taylor Reed ready to step in. Taylor is going to step into Chase’s role, and he’ll do a great job. He has worked really hard, he knows the defense and he’s a lot stronger this year.

“By the time he leaves, I think Reed will be even better than Chase. He’s bigger and stronger, and as last year went on, you could see him starting to play faster — he has to keep improving on that. What made Chase great was his ability to diagnose plays, and Taylor will get there, too.

“He’s a very good athlete, and he’s really hard-nosed, like an inside linebacker should be. (Reed) had a really good spring, and you could see flashes of Chase Kennemer in him already.”

It’s fairly safe to assume Banjo will retain the starting free safety spot he has occupied for his first two seasons, but who lines up next to him at strong safety is one of the biggest question marks heading into preseason workouts. Returning sophomores Jay Scott and Ryan Smith, as well as junior college transfer Justin Sorrell and maybe even a freshman or two all have their eye set on the position.

“In our defense, we almost don’t have a ‘free safety’ and a ‘strong safety,’” Banjo said. “We just play the two best safeties for each play. (Secondary) Coach (Derrick) Odum wants the best pair of safeties — he doesn’t look at us as just one or the other. He expects all of us to know how to play both safety spots, and we do. So we’re more versatile, and having the ability to interchange like that really increases our depth because we’re not limited to playing just one side or the other.”

While sorting out who will play in the spots vacated by the departed seniors, the Ponies also have to great ready for their season opener Sept. 5 in Lubbock, where they will face a mysterious opponent in the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Gone is former head coach Mike Leach, but new coach Tommy Tuberville will be trying get the players Leach recruited to run his system. New offensive coordinator Neal Brown, who came to Texas Tech from Troy University, is viewed as one of the game’s rising young offensive minds.

“It’s kind of difficult to get ready for a team with a new staff,” Banjo admitted. “I’ve watched a lot of Troy film, so I feel like I have an idea about some of their tendencies. But Tech has better athletes, and they’ll be in different situations. They’ll still pass more than they run — maybe 80-20 or 70-30 — but it’s a new system, new plays … it’s going to be a real challenge.”

As he starts his junior season, Banjo said he takes comfort in the fact that his mother no longer is dealing with the doctors and hospitals that were such a constant in her life. At Kempner High School in Sugar Land, Texas, Banjo’s contingent of fans often included his father, Ayo, and his twin brother and sister, Victor and Victoria, but Yinka rarely made it. Banjo said his mother knew how much he loved the game, but she usually was unable to see him play.

“She’s not suffering anymore, she’s not in pain,” he said. “That’s how I keep going.

“Now I know that she’s finally going to get to see me play.”