... situaion/drama.

They Shouldn't

I've seen/heard some people being relatively dismissive of this win because SMU's QB, Kevin Jennings, wasn't "the starter" in that game and the Mustangs have since "made a QB change."

First off, Jennings got ~90% of the snaps vs BYU & had 32 pass attempts compared to Stone's 4 attempts. Stone was only in for 2 drives (both "3-and-outs")

Secondly, Jennings wasn't coming in as a green backup and essentially entered the season (and definitely the BYU game) as a "co-starter" where Coach Lashlee was rotating each of them every two series. I recall hearing on the broadcast that both QBs were getting equal reps with the 1st team in practices and throughout the off-season.

Third, Jennings is in his third season with SMU & finished last season as the starter. He finished the last 3 Quarters vs Navy after Stone's injury and subsequently started in/won the AAC Championship game over Willie Fritz's Tulane squad. Thereafter, he got all the practice and game time related to their Bowl game and got first team reps throughout spring practices while Stone rehabilitated

Fourth, BYU won vs some tough odds. The Cougs were 13 point underdogs. SMU had two games under their belt (they played in Week 0) compared to only 1 for BYU. SMU hadn't lost at home since the middle of the 2022 season and haven't lost at all since. The Mustangs have averaged scoring in the mid 50s at home through the last 2 years, yet they never reached the end zone vs BYU and scored only 15 points (& even that required 2 FGs over 52 yards in length)

Lastly, while Jennings has "rounded into form" through the season, the exact same thing can be said of BYU's QB Retzlaff, who went into that game vs SMU 0-4 vs FBS opponents and had less in-game experience and a year less within the program/system than Jennings. Retzlaff also didn't have a great game, throwing 2 INTs and losing a fumble en route to a QBR of only 33.2. In fact, all three QBs (Retzlaff, Stone, and Jennings) had sub-par performances, but great defenses can have that effect even on great QBs.

Retzlaff has made greater strides/progress since that game than Jennings has, so the "new starting QB" argument doesn't work at all to minimize BYU's win in Dallas.

Here's the tweet about that with some screenshots backing up the stats.

https://twitter.com/jjfuller72/status/1853521168910709115