Rhett Lashlee after first practice of 2024 camp

[PonyPride]

SMU football head coach Rhett Lashlee met the media after the Mustangs opened preseason camp Wednesday. Among his comments in his post-practice press conference:

It’s good to be out, first day, trying to form our new team … helmets … our intentions were good. You could tell we’re in great shape — we didn’t have guys falling out and cramping up, but at the same time, we’re not in football shape. We went 14 periods, (and) you could tell around period eight, nine, 10 — coming out of our break — you could just tell guys were trying to fight through it, but they were sluggish … and that’s normal. That’s what the first three or four days, week of camp, is going to be like. So we’ve got to play our way into football shape.

We were sloppy in some things — we had too many offsides, too many false starts. Even though it’s Day 1, I thought the defense was good. They forced a lot of turnovers — that was a positive. But hey, it’s Day 1, like we just told them. Success is a long journey. We’re looking for consistency of performance, but like I said, I like the intentions for Day 1.

(On early start to camp because the Mustangs open the season a week earlier than usual, facing Nevada August 24 in “Week Zero”) It’s weird, a week left in July and we’re practicing — normally it’s the last day of July, the first day of August. Normally I don’t have to come straight from THSCA (Texas High School Coaches Association) and we’re in a team meeting that night, but we’ll see. I know this: we don’t have to sit around waiting. It’s here, we get to start building our team.

One thing that’s kind of unique is we’re going to get an extra week out of it before school starts, so we’ll see how that goes. It just means we have them a little bit longer, focusing mainly on football.

(Preston Stone) had a great summer. You could tell he was healthy all through the summer, and I think he got stronger in the weight room. I think "Coach Griz" (Assistant AD for Human Performance/head football strength coach Shawn Griswold) will tell you he had a really good summer, so I felt like (Stone’s) confidence was high coming into practice, and his health is not an issue — I don’t think he worries about it, we don’t worry about it. You could tell, in some areas he was rusty, but again, he hasn’t truly practice since Navy week last year. So it’s good to get him out there. I thought he looked comfortable, and it’s nothing we’re concerned about at all. He’s not limited in anything.

(On the influx of new talent on the offensive line) I think (offensive line will feature some of the team’s bigger position battles). Again, with just helmets and shorts for the first two days, it’s hard — it’s hard to know in the run game and pass pro and all that. But I think the first couple of weeks, that’s a big deal. We feel like we have great talent and athleticism, we have a lot of good depth. You know, we’ll get Logan Parr back here in a few weeks. But it gives some of those guys opportunities on the inside, and then on the outside, for sure, we’ve got a lot of length and athleticism at tackle. But we’ve got to gel — you know, moving J.O. (Justin Osborne) to center. The thing about an O-line is they’ve got to be a unit. So our potential and our ceiling for this group is high, but I think, you know, that’s what this next month is for — we’ve got a lot of work to do to figure out who this five, six, eight guys are, and how well we can gel.

In a perfect world, August 10 is two weeks before our first game. That will be our last … game-like scrimmage situation that’s physical. You would love to come out of that, going, “hey, we’re 15 practices in, two weeks in,” and go, “we have a lot of those things decided, at least for Game 1. Or, narrow it down and know “these guys are competing, and they’re probably both going to play,” and kind of play their way through that thing. At the same time — we proved it last year — we played a lot of guys on both sides of the ball. If guys earn the right to play, we’ll play a lot of guys. We’re going to need to play a lot of guys this year. So we’d love to know … two weeks out is a good number, but if we don’t know until a week out, that’s fine, and I bet at some positions we go into the game going, “hey, we’re going to play them both,” and it may take one game, two games, three games to settle itself … and that’s OK.

But yeah, particularly to the question before, O-line on offense and corner on defense are the areas that we need to let it shake out pretty quick.

I think (defensive coordinator) Scott (Symons) will probably tell you, third-and-6 or less, most DCs … they’re going to stay fairly basic, you know? That’s when people play a lot of man, they’re not going to get too exotic — especially in this day and age, when we all go for it on fourth down a lot. I mean, you’re susceptible to getting gutted on a run or whatever. But third-and-7-plus is when, a lot of times, you’ll see sub packages come in or a lot of the exotic looks happen. So with guys like (defensive ends) Elijah Roberts and Isaiah Smith, Cam Robertson — now we add Jahfari Harvey, and now we’ve got Omari (Abor) and Billy (Walton) here, too — we’ll have some flexibility to also move some of those guys inside and get creative.

(On the wide receivers, who quarterback Preston Stone said at the Atlantic Coast Conference Media Days are the best in the ACC) One thing is they feel good that if they compete and perform well, they’re going to play, because we played a lot of guys last year. A lot of people say that, and we were able to do it. At the same time, if someone goes out and proves they’re head and shoulders above (the competition), they’ll play a little bit more. I think the thing that’s probably a little bit different this year (is), if you look at our top six guys, five of those six are seniors. This is it — they don’t have another year. And you know, it’s just human nature — last year, there probably wasn’t that same urgency. Now it’s like “this is it … this is my last chance to play college football. Yes, we’re going to the ACC, but those guys all have aspirations and I think all have the ability to possibly play at the next level. So there’s a differentlevel of urgency. So there’s great competition. I know why Preston said it — he believes in his guys. We have the potential to be (the ACC’s best receiver group). We had a good unit last year. I’ll stop short of saying “great” — we dropped too many balls, particularly … I mean, our bowl game is a great example — and some contested plays, too. We made a lot of great plays, too. We have a lot of guys who have played a lot of snaps. I think of the top six, Jordan (Hudson), who’s the youngest, played 600-and-something snaps, and I think the next lowest was 800. So of those five seniors, they’ve all played between 800 and 1,500 snaps in their careers. They’ve got the talent — it’s … can they execute? Can they make contested catches? Can they have that consistency of performance? If they can, I do think we have the best unit in the league.

(On whether he thinks the Mustangs will resemble the 2023 team that had no receiver with 50 receptions or 600 receiving yards) I don’t know — that was a first in my career. It’s the first time I’ve hat that many guys (who are) good enough to play, where you feel like they’re all starter-capable. We just kind of spread it around and let it happen. Did not have a guy with over 50 catches or 600 yards — (that was) unusual for us. At the same time, we had seven guys catch a pass or more in every game … a lot of guys had 25, 30, 35, 40 catches for 500 yards. So I think we’re going to have a lot of guys play and do well. I don’t know … but we did win a championship. But it would shock me if somebody doesn’t crack 50 (receptions) and get close to 1,000 (receiving yards) … just the nature of how we play … and I do think if we have those guys who I thought were good raising their level and closer to great, I think you’ll have a lot more guys finishing plays and making more catches.

(On whether he thinks the players realize that their first season will be different from years past as they begin their first season as a member of the ACC) In a good way — I don’t feel like there’s this cloud hanging over us … A lot of these guys have confidence, confidence from what we accomplished last year. You know, “you accomplish confidence” — we did that. Yeah, we’ve got a new challenge in front of us — we haven’t done anything yet. It’s a brand-new team. A lot of these guys are older guys, whether they’ve been here the whole time or transferred in. They’ve been on those stages, so I think they’re just excited that we get to play that type of competition and compete with those guys, and see how we measure up. So in a good way … yeah, it feels different, but not like everybody’s kind of tight. I think our guys are like they are — they’re kind of loose, they’re confident. We’re going to find out where we stand — we don’t know, but I like our guys and I’m excited to get to watch them compete with this schedule.

(On benefits of having several coaches on staff and players who have previously played in the ACC) I don’t think there’s any question. A majority of the guys that transferred in here came from either the ACC or (other) power conferences. So they’ve either played in those stages, been in those stages, with the atmosphere, the physicality, the week-in, week-out of the grind … and then the guys that are the older guys that have been here — our quarterbacks, the Roderick Daniels, the Isaiah Nwokobias … those guys that are older — they’ve gone on the road and won in Fort Worth, they’ve played in Oklahoma, they’ve played at Maryland — hey’ve done all those things. I don’t think they’re going to have any kind of anxiousness about that. I think they’re excited … and that’s good.

(On impression of tackle Andrew Chamblee, who transferred from Arkansas) Day 1, I’m not watching one guy, so once I see the film, I’ll see. I mean … he’s big (6-6, 303), he’s got length. The fact that we moved Justin inside — obviously, he could be an excellent tackle, but I think he’s going to be inside at the NFL level and I think he’s got a chance to be as good a center as there is in the country … he just hasn’t done it, but talent-wise and intelligence-wise — so to move him inside and still feel like you have three dudes who could start (at tackle) anywhere in our league, that’s a plus, between PJ (Williams) and Andrew and Savion (Byrd). So now, it’s about getting consistency in performance.

[Charleston Pony]

Nice to have enough quality depth that the coaches are going to have to make tough decisions on who will start and what kind of rotation they will build. Hopefully this team will transition to P4 competition much more successfully than our former AAC mates did last year

[Ikus]

Thanks to Lashlee for pointing out that Chamblee "is big"

He's such an improvement over coaches like Dykes and Bennett, who ignored what was asked of them and just spit out memorized answers to questions completely unrelated to what was asked.