Four touchdowns, 25 points. The arithmetic looks less like football than a receipt examined by someone who has misplaced the coupons.
SMU beat Boston College 25-16 Saturday at Gerald J. Ford Stadium in Dallas and improved to 4-1. The less comfortable part is how much suspense the Mustangs left in a game they had pushed to 25-10 with 4:37 remaining.
The first missed chance shaped the afternoon immediately. Kendrick Raphael’s 2-yard run put SMU ahead 6-0 with 11:33 left in the opening quarter, and a two-point attempt came up empty. Boston College answered with Luca Lombardo’s 52-yard field goal, then took a 10-6 lead on Mason McKenzie’s 43-yard touchdown pass to Evan Dickens.
The four-point deficit was still manageable, but SMU had already left its first scoring opportunity unfinished.
Kevin Jennings restored the lead with his legs in the second quarter. His 4-yard touchdown run at 10:05 made it 13-10, and Brendan Baird converted the extra point. That drive covered 83 yards in 15 plays, lasted 6:30 and offered the strongest counterargument to any broad criticism of SMU’s offense.
The Mustangs moved the ball through a long possession, including Jennings’ third-and-4 run for a first down and a Boston College pass-interference penalty that extended the march after an apparent fourth-down stop.
The next touchdown produced no extra point. Jennings found Randy Pittman Jr. for 14 yards at 7:25 of the third quarter, but the kick failed, leaving SMU at 19-10. Then, after Derrick McFall’s 20-yard touchdown catch at 4:37 of the fourth, SMU again tried for two and got nothing.
Across the four touchdown drives, only one post-touchdown kick counted. The two failed runs and Baird’s missed kick were separate opportunities to add points. Once the touchdown had done the hard work, SMU repeatedly left its score where it stood.
That mattered because Boston College was capable of moving the ball. The Eagles finished with 322 yards to SMU’s 218, and McKenzie accounted for 282 yards himself through passing and rushing. SMU’s defense kept producing the plays that mattered, however.
In the third quarter, McKenzie was sacked for a 12-yard loss by Marques White and fumbled. Aakil Washington recovered at the BC 47 and advanced the ball 34 yards to the BC 13. After two intervening plays, Pittman scored from 14 yards out.
White had three sacks, and Washington added one of his own. That turnover was not a defensive touchdown, nor did it erase Boston College’s statistical advantage, but it converted pressure into an immediate scoring opportunity. SMU needed exactly that kind of help on a day when its offense gained only 58 rushing yards as a team.
