From halftime of the Navy game until halftime of the Tulane game, I don’t think I’m alone in saying those were eight hard quarters to watch.

The 2009 team and its success came out of nowhere. Young, inexperienced players were inserted into starting roles and the excitement surrounding the program seemed to increase with the week. After years of half-hearted goals and overall program direction and hustle, a new coach rolled into town, threw around phrases like “learning to win” and “building a brotherhood” and on and on, and we all woke up on Christmas day proud alums, boosters and fans of a bowl championship group.

Hampton says June Jones has moved on from teaching the Mustangs to win to teaching the Mustangs how to win championships (photo by Travis Johnston).

Naturally, like any group, we SMU fans began expecting an even bigger step the next season, in which the Mustangs surely would be playing for a share of the conference championship, if not winning it outright, and the vaunted Run-and-Shoot, with its explosive components, would light up scoreboards across the Conference of Can U Stop Anyone, and the defense would create turnovers and dominant efforts just by showing up every week.

Toss in a weekly TV documentary and preseason magazines touting the fact that the Mustangs are back and you could feel the rest of the country was, for the first time, taking notice of SMU football for something other than a death penalty.

But football, especially on an amateur level, can be a real lady dog. Navy didn’t care how SMU fared in last year’s bowl game against an option offense, Houston enjoyed the irony of starting a true freshman QB from Southlake, and Tulane, for a half anyway, fought like it was C-USA’s version of the upstart Ponies from 2009.

To break the funk, a new defensive tackle (Szymon Czerniak) replaced a kid (Marquis Frazier) with nagging injuries, the backup quarterback was given a chance to shake his own rust and rattle the dome of the starter, and an energetic halftime speech reportedly was given by the head coach.

For those out there thinking June Jones needs to do “X” more or “Y” less, or whatever else comes to an emotional mind within a 48-hour window of the previous game, check out Tulane head coach Bob Toledo’s quote from his Monday press conference, in response to a question in what he felt was the difference in the game after his team scooped and scored a fumble, putting Tulane up, 17-3, midway through the third quarter:

“In seven plays, they go 60 yards and score a touchdown in 2:24,” Toledo said. “Then when they get it back, they go two plays, 82 yards in 18 seconds. Then they go five plays, 74 yards, 2:27, and then they go five plays, 2:55. They went long distances in a short period of time with not many plays. We take the second-half kickoff, for example, we go 17 plays, eat up eight minutes of the clock, our defense is resting, but we get a field goal out of it. That was the difference.”

It’s one thing if Tulane were the 2006 or 2007 versions and couldn’t defend anyone. This was the No. 14 overall defense in the country leading up to the game, and it got worked.

SMU isn’t a finished product — not even close — but it seems like a light may have come on after plodding around and sprinkling urine into a stiff wind for eight quarters. The ebb and flow may put us on great highs or suck some life out of us through some depressing lows, but let’s not forget that two seasons ago, the coach was just realizing what he got himself into and spent the next year teaching young people how to win.

Now, let’s try to enjoy watching that same guy teach the same young people how to win championships.