PonyFans.com is proud to welcome back, for his third season as a columnist, Nate, who is 15 years old, in ninth grade, might want to be a sports writer and knows more about football than a lot of people who already make their living covering sports. He will offer his thoughts and will preview each game throughout the season, looking at a key player, matchup or statistic that could prove relevant in each upcoming game … and explain why it will impact the outcome. Feel free to post comments and constructive criticism, ask him questions, and/or give suggestions for upcoming columns! (He can be followed on Twitter at @Pony_NATE_tion.)

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Tulane head coach Curtis Johnson (photo by Tulane).

The Mustangs come back home after a brutal 55-14 loss against one of the best Navy teams this country has seen in a while.

Could anyone have seen that coming? Yes. That is why that shouldn’t be a terribly discouraging game. It isn’t as if they lost to North Texas by that margin. Navy is a very good team that competed with the likes of Notre Dame.

The loser of Saturday’s game against Tulane game likely will finish in last place in the Western division of the American Athletic. So this game probably represents a fight for pride on both sidelines. Also, don’t forget that this is Senior Day for the Mustangs and the seniors really don’t want to finish their careers at SMU with a loss.

Tulane is coming off of a 34-31 win over Army, mercifully ending its five-game losing streak. That being said, Tulane still isn’t a good football team at all. It has a bottom-of-the-barrel offense, averaging less than 200 yards passing per game and also averaging about 100 yards on the ground per game. Tulane only scores a measly 18 points a game — that is 2014 SMU offense-esque. On top of that, the Green Wave can’t stop anybody, surrendering 34 points a game, which checks in at 105th in the nation. Tulane doesn’t have it figured out on either side of the ball. At least SMU can light up the scoreboard on the offensive side.

“They are very dangerous,” TU head coach Curtis Johnson said of SMU. “Their quarterback [Matt Davis] is a transfer from Texas A&M [via Tyler JC], and he is very dangerous. Their freshman receiver [Courtland Sutton] … I don’t know how they got this kid, because we would like to have him playing for us. They can run a lot and score a lot of points in every game that they play in. Their defense is pretty veteran, and they do a great job. They’ve scored a lot of points, but they haven’t won very many games, which is unfortunate for them. They are a very good football team though. Every time you look at the film, it’s a close loss or that one win.”

This is proof that SMU’s high-octane offense strikes fear into opposing coach’s minds. SMU has many weapons, especially the big one that Johnson mentioned: Sutton. I’ve mentioned him many times this season, and I’ll hopefully be mentioning him for the next two or three years. Sutton is special and the word is getting out about him. Everyone knows of his size, speed, and athleticism. He’s only a freshman, and is one of the underrated wide receivers in the country. Former SMU (now Denver Broncos) standout wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders, who holds many receiving records at SMU, was asked what he thought of Courtland Sutton a few weeks ago on Twitter. Sanders tweeted back at the fan, saying, “(I) think he’s going to break a lot if not all of my records.” The point is, the word of Sutton is spreading around the country, and scouts and coaches are learning a lot about him. The key to that is the fact that Sutton comes to play when the stage gets a little bigger (i.e. Baylor, TCU, Temple games), even if his team, as a whole, is overmatched. Expect another big day out of the 6-4 freshman Saturday.

The Mustangs are a better team than Tulane, even though Tulane may have a substantially better record than SMU. All the young players on SMU will come ready to play Saturday and fight for the seniors on their special day. Tulane will score a little bit against SMU’s suspect defense, but SMU will score all kinds of points on a very bad Green Wave defense. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict an SMU win by a sizable margin on Senior Day.

Nate’s Take: SMU 41 Tulane 27