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Hawaii Bowl
SMU 43, Fresno State 10
What happened: Between terrific efforts QB Garrett Gilbert and DE Margus Hunt, SMU raced out to a 22-point halftime lead and never truly wavered, soaring to the Ponies’ third bowl win in four years.
Star of the game: It’s got to be Hunt, the senior from Estonia playing in his final game. He was completely unblockable, forcing a pair of fumbles and notching a safety. We’ve known for a while that he has the raw athleticism to dominate, but this was the first time we truly saw it in practice.
Key number: 14. That’s how many points the SMU defense put up for the Ponies, between Hunt’s safety and interception returns for touchdowns for Taylor Reed and Hayden Greenbauer in the fourth quarter that truly put the game away.
What’s it mean? Hard to tell. Don’t get me wrong: this was a great win for SMU over a very, very good Fresno State squad - SMU was one of the biggest underdogs in the bowl schedule - but can they parlay that momentum into next year? Garrett Gilbert was good, and that’s a step in the right direction, but next year’s SMU team is going to look very different with the loss of RB Zach Line and DE Margus Hunt. The key, in my opinion, is Gilbert; can he ride this to a better 2013?

I think this guy from Dave Campbell's Magazine has it about right. Next year will depend on GG's improvement. We are going to have to score a lot of points on opponents with our losses on defense.

GG will be all conference next year

ponyboy wrote:GG will be all conference next year

Agreed. If he improves over the off-season at the rate he improved over the course of the season he will be scary

I'm still nervous about the surrounding talent, basically because I don't know what's there. When the 5 senior OLs graduated last year, they were replaced by a junior (Gottschalk) and 3 seniors (Free, McJunkin and Collins), along with Lasecki. Now those seniors are gone, and I gather some of the freshmen who redshirted this year are big and talented, but they're unproven at this level. Plus, we need to figure out who replaces Zach Line and the receivers have to be much more reliable.

Well, there's Stavion Lowe, Taylor Reich and Seaver Meyers and others in the mix, I'm sure. Plus, young Laseki turned out pretty well. Running/blocking back Shead, Line, etc. Trouble is getting them ready for the first few games. Coaches need to do a better job of that seems to me. Defensive line/backers might be tougher to replace, that's why the offense needs to come out firing.

Gilbert is doing a nice job running the ball, but he still needs to learn to hit WRs in stride on the deep ball. Still overthrows them most of the time also.

westexSMU wrote:Gilbert is doing a nice job running the ball, but he still needs to learn to hit WRs in stride on the deep ball. Still overthrows them most of the time also.

overthrows deep balls but throws behind guys a lot on slants