2018 SMU Offense Preview

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When Sonny Dykes was shopping for an offensive coordinator to bring with him to SMU, he knew what he wanted.

He was fishing for complements. A descendant of the Mike Leach Air Raid coaching tree, Dykes knew the passing game and concepts to make it work. He wanted a mind capable of adding in a dose of running game expertise. He found one across his new conference but had to travel nearly 1,700 miles to Storrs, Conn. to find him. Rhett Lashlee, who spent most of his career working under Auburn coach Gus Malzahn, is making his first stop in Texas in hopes of melding Malzahn’s run-heavy system with Dykes’ quick-strike passing attack.

“His strength is to say, ‘They’re playing this front, we want to run this play. OK, when they do this we’re going to adjust to that. They do this, we run this. They throw this, we run this play action off of it,’” Dykes said. “That’s not the way we’ve thought.”

The Mustangs have promising personnel, even as they’ve undertaken the monumental offseason task of finding replacements for the outlandishly productive Courtland Sutton and Trey Quinn, a 1-2 punch at receiver that rivaled almost any in college football last season.

Ben Hicks gives the offense a calming presence at quarterback. He’s thrown for 6,499 yards in two seasons as starter and while he won’t have Sutton and Quinn, he can lean on running backs Xavier Jones, Braeden West and Ke’Mon Freeman. The offensive line has to replace two starters, but the versatile sophomore Hayden Howerton was among several spring standouts.

Dykes also signed juco transfers OT Levon Livingston, OG Nick Dennis and OT Beau Morris to add immediate depth to the position.

James Proche impressed Dykes during the spring and showed a capability to emerge as a No. 1 target, but the Mustangs only had five total receivers on the roster for spring. Newcomers Treveon Johnson and Jared Miles could find their way into the rotation and compete for jobs with Tyler Page, Myron Gailliard and Alex Honey. 

“I think we’re going to be a team that can run the ball,” Dykes said. “That’s our hope, to be able to run it and run it well enough to do some things from a play-action standpoint and get the ball to our running backs and some playmakers in space.”

 

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