It’s one thing to play a team that appears on the schedule every year, as the Mustangs do with their Conference USA opponents and TCU. It’s another thing altogether to have to get ready to play an opponent with which there is no long-standing history, and no familiarity among the players on each side of the ball.

Such is the case this weekend, when SMU hosts Texas State in the home opener at 7 p.m. Saturday night. A handful of the players know each other from their high school days, and backup TSU linebacker Patrick Strodtman originally signed with SMU before transferring. But that’s about it, as far as knowledge of each other goes.

To a man, the SMU coaches have said that while they have studied tape of the Bobcats and have a knowledge of Texas State’s personnel and coaches, they are far more interested in seeing how the Mustangs respond after their initial game under their new coaching staff.

OFFENSE

In the opener, the Ponies faced a Rice Owls team that relies largely on the pass. Texas State, on the other hand, builds its offense around the running game. Senior Stan Zwinggi (5-11, 190) is the starter who had 887 yards of total offense in his junior season, and returned 15 kickoffs for 378 yards (25.2 yards per). He’s the starter and the workhorse, but the big-play threat is sophomore Karrington Bush, who was the Southland Conference Freshman of the year last year and earned second-team all-conference honors. In TSU’s opener against Angelo State, Bush ran for a team-high 2 yards on nine carries (6.9 per).

Nose tackle Serge Elizee said center Steve Kenney is the best athlete on the Texas State offensive line (photo by Webmaster).

Senior Bradley George is huge (6-6, 235) quarterback who completed 55.9 percent of his passes a year ago (190-of-334) for 2,099 yards and 16 touchdowns last year. But he struggled in Texas State’s opener against Angelo State, 2-for-9 for just nine yards, and threw a touchdown and two interceptions. George was pulled in favor of fellow senior Clint Toon (6-1, 195), who completed 6-of-11 for 117 yards and a touchdown.

“Clint stepped up, managed the football team and got us down the field when we needed him to,” Texas State head coach Brad Wright said. “He played an instrumental role in Texas State winning the football game.”

When they do throw, the Bobcats spread the ball around. Sam Tindol caught five passes apiece against Angelo State, while Drew Peterson and Daniel Thomas hauled in four each.

The Texas State offensive line is not huge, averaging about 290 pounds per man, but senior SMU nose tackle Serge Elizee said the Bobcats offense has the weapons to be dangerous.

“They’re not that big up front, but they’re very physical, and they look like good blockers,” Elizee said. “Their best lineman on film is their center (Steven Kenney — 6-1, 275), and he’s the best athlete on their line. But all of them look like they do a pretty good job.”

Elizee said the Bobcats particularly like to run behind the left side of their offensive line, following junior left tackle Alex Luna (6-3, 280) and left guard Michael Schneeweis, who carries a reported 335 pounds on his 6-foot-3 frame but maintains surprising athleticism.

“He’s really big, and he’s really strong,” Elizee said. “They like to pull him around to the right when they run that way, and when he gets his momentum going, he can run you over.”

Even the receivers get in on the running game — Elizee said the Bobcats like to hand the ball off to wide receivers when they go in motion, especially junior college transfer E.J. LeBlanc.

DEFENSE

The Texas State defense operates out of a 4-3 base formation, with a defensive line that averages about 266 pounds per man, although no starter weighs more than defensive tackle Ray Parker (yes, the son of the former singer), who tips the scales at 288 pounds. Parker and fellow defensive tackle Wellington Deshield led the TSU defensive line in the opener with four tackles each.

Quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell said the key to beating Texas State revolves around the Mustangs' ability to correct their own mistakes (photo by Webmaster).

SMU quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell said he hasn’t studied a great deal of Texas State tape, but said that on the film he has seen, the Bobcat defense looks sound fundamentally. Instead, he has been studying old North Texas tapes, to learn the tendencies of new Texas State defensive coordinator Fred Bleil.

“Our coaches have talked about their new defensive coordinator, and some of the defenses he has built at different places he’s coached,” Mitchell said. “From what we saw in their opener, it doesn’t look like they blitz a lot, but they are pretty strong and aggressive at the line. They stayed pretty basic, but they didn’t give up a lot.”

When Texas State met Angelo State in its season opener, the Bobcats’ leading tackler was senior cornerback Morris Crosby (with seven stops), who spent the last three seasons at wide receiver. While he lacks collegiate experience in the secondary, SMU receivers coach Jeff Reinebold said that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily an inviting target, because “he probably understands the passing game better than any of their other defensive backs.”

Linebackers Bryan Iwuji and Marcus Clark had six tackles each against Angelo State, while safety Jamal Williams and linebacker Brian Williams had five each.

Mitchell said there’s not one particular area of the Texas State defense that concerns him the most. Instead, he said he has a great deal of respect for the Bobcat defense, but then echoed his coaches, saying his — and his teammates’ — primary focus Saturday has to be on improving their offense, rather than scheming too much for particular parts of the TSU defense.

“We’ve seen the mistakes we made against Rice,” he said. “I missed some throws, but I felt more comfortable as the game went on making my reads. When we get a little sharper, we’ve got some really talented receivers here, and when they get the passes exactly where they need to be, they’re going to start taking five-yard passes and 10-yard passes and turning them into touchdowns.”