Opponent preview: Mustangs seek rebound against Missouri State

[PonyPride]

Opponent preview: Mustangs seek rebound against Missouri State
SMU faces Bears in first year for MoState as FBS program

For the second week in a row, the SMU football team will be hunting Bears Saturday.

The Mustangs head to Springfield, Missouri, where they will face Missouri State at Robert W. Plaster Stadium (capacity: 17,500). The Bears enter the game with a 1-1 record after getting crushed, 73-13, in the opener at USC and then knocking off Marshall, 21-20, Saturday in Huntington, W.V. MoState is in its first year as an FBS program, making Saturdays win over the Thundering Herd a milestone victory for the program.

The Bears are 17-6 in their last 23 home games and have scored two or more touchdowns in 21 of those 23 games, and 30 or more points 17 times. They have posted a winning record at home in each of the last four seasons, including a 5-1 mark last season.

MSU is 13-12 under third-year head coach Ryan Beard, and 11-2 in games in which they amass 400 or more yards of total offense.

"What an incredible performance by our players and staff," Beard said of the Bears' victory over Marshall. "When I say that, I mean it sincerely. To go to USC, get beat down by a superior opponent, get into Springfield at 6 a.m. ... take 48 hours to get your legs back, have a competitive week of practice and go back to the other coast and play a really, really talented Marshall team and put it on them at (their) home is a big, big feat."

Thanks to the beating in the opener, the team's statistics through two games are understandably skewed. With just two games played, a statistical outlier game can throw the numbers far off reality, so take them with a grain of salt.

The Bears have been outscored by an average of 46.5-17 and have been outgained by 86.5 yards per game: opponents are averaging 435.5 yards per game, compared to 349 for Missouri State.

First downs are closer than might be expected (29 for MoState, 39 for its opponents), considering the discrepancy between the Bears' points scored and points allowed, but again, the numbers don't tell the story, because the Bears allowed three touchdowns of more than 60 yards to USC, thereby cutting down on the Trojans' need to move the chains.

Offense
The Bears are led by quarterback Jacob Clark, a 6-5,220-pound senior from Rockwall, Texas, and a transfer from Minnesota. Clark finished 14th in the Walter Payton (FCS Offensive Player of the Year) Award voting and earned first-team All-MVFC honors a year ago after a season in which he completed 262 of 376 passes (.697) for 3,604 yards, 26 touchdowns and just six interceptions. Through two games this season, his accuracy is nearly the same: he has completed 37 of 55 passes (.623) for 506yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions. He threw for 359 yards and three touchdowns in the victory over Marshall.

Missouri State's offense operates largely out of a three-receiver, one-back alignment. Junior Jmariyae Robinson (6-1, 165) is tied (with running back Ramone Green, Jr. and receiver Tristian Gardner — a 6-2,180-pound freshman from Dallas who played at Waxahachie High School) with a team-high six receptions through the first two games. Each has found the end zone once so far.

The Bears have had to take to the air a lot because of the lopsided score against USC, but when they have run the ball, they have found modest success, averaging just 75.5 yards per game, and more importantly, 2.3 yards per carry, through two games. Senior Shomari Lawrence (6-0, 210) leads the ground game with 29 carries for 99 yards (3.4 yards per carry).

Redshirt freshman tight end Jeron Askren (6-3, 230) is the Conference USA Freshman of the Week after scoring the game-winning touchdown with 2:12 remaining in the Bears' victory at Marshall.

The most easily identified member of the Bears' veteran offensive line also has DFW ties: senior right guard Erick Cade blocks out defenders — and perhaps the sun — at 6-7, 345.


The Bears' base defense operates out of a 4-2-5 alignment. The strength of the defensive line is inside, where senior defensive tackle Sterling Smithson (6-3, 325) has five tackles, including one tackle for loss, and anchors the middle of the line of scrimmage. He is joined inside by senior Ryan Williams, the 6-4, 270-pound Western Kentucky transfer whose 2024 season was cut short by injuries after seven games. Perhaps the most physically imposing of the linemen is junior Davon Townley, Jr. (6-6, 275) who had 13 tackles, including 2.5 for loss and 1.5 sacks last season in his first season after transferring from Penn State. The closest to a pure defensive end among the first group is D.J. Wesolak, a 6-4, 255-pound transfer from Oregon State.

The Missouri State linebackers are a solid group that is led by Jared Lloyd, a 6-3, 240-pound redshirt junior who is tied for the team lead with 12 tackles through two games after missing the entire 2024 season because of an injury he suffered during the preseason. The previous year, he was second among MSU defenders with 67 tackles. Joining Lloyd is senior Kanye Young (6-1, 220), who led the MoState defense with seven tackles (three of which were on third down to end drives), a pair of quarterback hurries a tackle for loss and the team's only 2025 interception against Marshall on his way to C-USA Defensive Player of the Week honors. Young has 10 total tackles this season.

Senior safety Maguire Neal (6-1, 200) shares the team lead with 12 tackles, while redshirt senior cornerback Thomas Anderson (6-1, 190) has 10 stops and a pass breakup.

Special teams
Punter Anthony Frederique (5-8, 205) has averaged 39.22 yards on nine punts this season, while kicker Yousef Obeid (6-0, 180) has converted two of his four field goal attempts, with a long of 46 yards.

Beard had little time to bask in the glow of his team's win over Marshall, as his team prepares to host the Mustangs in its first home game as an FBS program.

"We're excited about bringing in another big, big game with SMU," Beard said,/url>. "(The Mustangs are) a really, really talented program (with a) great coaching staff — should be a good one for our home crowd to come out and support the Bears."

Looking at Saturday's game against SMU, Beard was asked whether he would rather be playing a team coming off a win or a team, like the Mustangs, that might be angry coming off a loss.

"Man, what a tough question that is," he said. "For me, it's a pretty easy answer: I would have loved for them to have a three-, four-, five-score win versus Baylor — I think that would haves at with their players and coaching staff a little better. But either way, we're going to roll it out and go play and see what shakes out, and welcome them with open arms into Plaster Stadium, and see what they think."

Beard is right: an easy win over Baylor would have been more palatable for the Mustangs, who Lashlee said could have — and perhaps should have — won against the Bears. Lashlee pointed out that the Mustangs had ample chances to win, but were unable to get the desired result.

"(Saturday against Baylor) was a game where we did a lot of things well," Lashlee said. "We ran the ball well, we won the run game, we won the turnover battle, we won the battle of field position. Explosives were pretty even. We did a lot the things we needed to do to win the football game. It was a great opportunity, and a disappointing situation for us to teach and learn as a young team — a young team playing a team with a lot of veterans.

"We've been really good at finishing here ... and we didn't finish. The reality of it is the hardest thing to do in sports is to close out (games). I think there's some lessons to be learned, some painful growing pains to go through. Make no mistake: we don't accept it and want to tolerate it, we're not OK with it. We're pissed off about it, because the guys put in so much work throughout the year, throughout the week, and for three-and-a-half quarters,they put themselves in a great position to win against a good football team — in my opinion, a top 25-caliber football team. Like I said, I think we deserved to win, but we didn't earn the win. It's going to be about how we handle this. Do we use this? Do we let it be a catalyst for us as a team, as individuals?"

Now, Lashlee said, he the disappointment from the loss to Baylor to serve as fuel Saturday against Missouri State.

"It's hurtful," he said. "We're moving on. We've got a tough week, to go on the road for the first time against Missouri State. We need to go play well, we need to play ticked off, we need to get a win and heal up that wound of last week, get a scar that hopefully will remind us in the future. Hopefully we'll respond better."

NOTE: Longtime Missouri State broadcaster Art Hains will be calling his last game Saturday — against his alma mater. The SMU graduate started calling Missouri State games in 1977, and his final season behind the microphone for the Bears is his 46th. Saturday will be his 463rd MSU football broadcast in a career that has included nearly 3,000 athletic events for the school.

[Bear Nation]

Really glad you mentioned Art Hains. I don't know if many SMU fans are familiar with him or not, but he is a legend here in Missouri and in addition to being the voice of the Bears in football, basketball, and baseball he is well known in the KC area as part of the pre and postgame coverage of KC Chiefs football on radio. He suffered some health challenges the last few years but really wanted to end his career with his alma mater coming to town.

This game also makes me think of SMU alum and Springfield native Payne Stewart as well. Just a couple of things that tie us together.