FORT WORTH — Some years ago, the SMU band pulled a most excellent prank during a halftime routine at TCU’s Amon G. Carter Stadium, sprinkling seeds of rye grass on the field in the shape of their patented “M.”
Sure enough, given the time and conditions needed, up sprouted a reminder that SMU was there.
The imprint Shane Buechele left on Saturday was one that a landscaper won’t be able to remove.
He is clearly the Mustangs’ Moses, the chief catalyst in SMU’s best start in 35 years under coach Sonny Dykes, and the difference in his team’s 41-38 victory over No. 25 TCU. The Mustangs demonstrated on Saturday that their good start to the season was not simply the result of beating up college football’s underprivileged.
They’re pretty good.
The Arlington Lamar High School graduate and graduate transfer from Texas was 23 for 34 for 288 yards and two touchdowns passing and one running, the latter the first score of SMU’s opening 15-0 start.
His most important contribution: When this game could have gotten squirrelly for SMU, there stood a mature, steadying presence making sure this ship stayed afloat amid choppy water.
It was the starkest difference between these two Dallas-Fort Worth rivals who played for the 99th time.
Personally, Buechele made amends for two bad losses he suffered against TCU while at Texas as a freshman and sophomore.
All the more reason to Say Amen to Saturday Night.
“To get a win against a ranked team on the road, it was big for us,” Buechele said, as composed and seemingly unconcerned as he was in the fourth quarter. “They’re a tough team. My freshman year, they had a top defense, and my sophomore year they were really good. They’re still good on defense. They’re ranked No. 2 in the nation in defense, I think. But it was important for us to get the win, and, for me, it was really exciting.”
Dykes’ father, Spike – if he could, this writer would mention him in everything he wrote – himself a former college head coach at Texas Tech, once said, as only he could that, “I guess you lose 10% of your friends every year. I’ve been on the Tech staff for 10 years, so mom and my dog is about all I got left.”
Dykes, the son, has a bunch of friends at the moment. In this business of football coach, that can change by the minute, but the Mustangs have clearly made significant strides since this time a year ago. SMU started 2018 appearing to be suffering from a bad case of vertigo at 0-3, but the Mustangs got better week after week. Bowl eligibility was even in sight with three games to go.
Dykes bolstered his roster with a number of transfers, including Buechele.
It was clearly not a good day Saturday for the Horned Frogs, but that had mostly to do with SMU which, as one esteemed member of press row remarked, had TCU chasing its tail all day.
That was no fake news. SMU had outcoached and outwitted the Frogs, to be sure, but they also out-willed them as a pivotal sequence in the first half epitomized.
Buechele made a rare mistake at the 13:49 mark of the second quarter, tossing an interception from TCU’s 23. It was a magnified mistake considering it followed a third gift turnover from TCU and a golden opportunity for more points, 10 up to that point, off TCU unforced errors. To sprinkle a little jalapeno dust into the eye, someone on TCU’s defensive front – it was unclear who – had gotten hold of an SMU lineman’s helmet and tossed it from the line of scrimmage to about the goal line.
Dykes went all pine-tar George Brett. To the Millennials in the audience, he went into a rage.
“It was a hell of a throw,” Dykes said afterward. “You gotta try and go do that some time, see how far you can throw a helmet.”
TCU scored two plays after officials said they didn’t know what Dykes was talking about. As the play-by-play sheet says, Darius Anderson rush 77 yards to the SMU 3. Darius Anderson rush for 3 yards to the SMU0. Touchdown.
It was 18-14 and an ensuing SMU three-and-out confirmed the feeling that TCU was about to take control of the game.
It didn’t happen, though.
SMU forced TCU to punt and on the next drive, Captain Buechele led his offensive forces 67 yards for another touchdown, Ke’Mon Freeman scoring from the 1. The key play was Buechele’s 44-yard pass play to Reggie Roberson Jr. that gave SMU a first-and-goal.
TCU rebutted with a 29-yard field goal from Jonathan Song.
The Mustangs came charging back, this time taking advantage of another TCU mistake. CJ Sanders’ kickoff return was only to his team’s 27, but TCU freshman Tre’Vius Hodges-Tomlinson was flagged for overzealousness, specifically a late hit out-of-bounds.
Instead, SMU and Buechele took over at their 42. Nine plays and 58 yards later, SMU was back in the end zone, this time on Buechele’s pinpoint 9-yard pass to James Proche.
The message had been sent and not only in a 31-17 reading of the scoreboard: The Mustangs weren’t going anywhere.
“Our guys have a really good mindset letting the last play go aside and playing our game,” Buechele said. “We try to not let the other team or refs affect what we do. We just try to do our best and control what we can control.
“Once we figured out that last drive of the first half, we had the tempo. We knew if we could get up-tempo, they’d have a hard time stopping us. That’s what we do best.”
SMU can be 5-0 for the first time since 1983, the days of Reggie Dupard and Fort Worth’s Jeff Atkins, with a victory next week against South Florida. After that, you start getting into the history of the Pony Express days of Eric Dickerson and Craig James.
That game will also be a reunion for Buechele with his former coach at Texas, Charlie Strong.
The exes are getting excited, too. Dickerson tweeted his enthusiasm after the game, calling Dykes a “great hire and leader of young men.”
“I think just figuring out a way to win a football game” is more important than being 4-0, Dykes said. “It’s hard to do. Every one of them, they’re all different.”
Having a good, experienced quarterback helps in the figuring out.
(Photo: SMU Athletics)