The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: SMU Mustangs 2025 Edition

NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...

Welp. Season’s over.

Miami played a sloppy game, and with a combination of bad performances, unbidden stupidity, and some terrible refereeing, found a way to lose to the SMU Mustangs 26-20 in overtime.

Craig T. Smith has your game recap:

Mike Schiffman is back with the 3 stars of the game:

Let’s get into this edition of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:

The Good

• WR Malachi Toney. 9 catches for 70 yards, 2 carries for -1 yards, and a punt return for 47 yards. He continues to prove he’s an elite player.
• RB Mark Fletcher Jr. 16 carries for 84 yards and 3 catches for 19 yards.
• WR Jojo Trader. 5 catches for 81 yards and a touchdown. That drop that turned into an interception tho………….
• CB Keionte Scott. Another yeoman’s effort in the loss. 6 tackles, 2 TFLs, a sack, a QB hurry, and a PBU. He was everywhere for Miami’s defense and one of the few players who didn’t negatively impact the game.
• K Carter Davis. 2/2 on FGs, and a form tackle on an SMU kick return that would have been a touchdown otherwise.
• P Dylan Joyce. 5 punts for 230 yards (46ypp average) with 3 inside the 20.
• CB Keionte Scott with a fumble recovery on 4th down to stop SMU’s first drive of the day. Scott continues to play at an elite level!

• Welcome to the show, Jojo Trader! The sophomore scored his first touchdown of the year on Miami’s 2nd drive to put the Canes up 7-0.

• Malachi Toney with a 47 yard punt return just before the half. This kid is SO GOOD!!!

• Miami walked down the field in 7 plays to score a touchdown on the opening drive of the 3rd quarter to retake the lead. This was a critical punch back after SMU scored after the 1st play fumble was erroneously overturned on their opening drive of 3Q to take the lead.

• 433 yards of offense
• 274 yards passing
• 159 yards rushing
• 78 total plays
• 5.6 yards per play
• 4 yards per rush
• 10.5 yards per completion
• 9 chunk plays — 7 passes (15+), 2 runs (10+)
• 2/2 red zone scoring
• 23 first downs
• 7/16 on 3rd down
• 3/5 on 4th down
• Held SMU to 3/13 on 3rd down.
• Held SMU to 0/1 on 4th down.
• Held SMU to 0.9 yards per rush.
• Won time of possession 37:42 to to 22:18 for SMU. WOW.
• 6 TFLs
• 2 sacks
• Only allowed 4 TFLs
• 0 sacks allowed

The Bad

• A loss.
• A conference loss.
• The opening drive stalling because of a bad Mark Fletcher Jr. drop on a checkdown on 1st down (he was WIDE OPEN), and a screen to Malachi Toney that lost 4 yards. The goal is to go forward, not backward.
• Miami stalling out on their 3rd drive. Penalty after penalty after penalty.
• THIS ONE was horrible. Mauigoa ragdolled a defender. This isn’t holding. This is a grown man abusing a smaller, weaker man.

• Settling for a FG after the Toney PR gave us the ball at the SMU 9 yard line just before half.
• Advanced stats profile. Miami shouldn’t have lost. And yet.

The Ugly

• A season-ending loss.
• Yet again, with the season on the line and “playoff football” having already started, Miami found a way to mess around and lose a game they had no business losing. Cool bro. Thanks.
• QB Carson Beck. 26/38 passing (68.4% completions) for 274 yards with 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions.
• Beck’s stat line is actually alright, but you know why he’s here in The Ugly: he threw a game-losing interception in overtime. Everything else be damned. That one throw was the one that mattered.
• Injury report games. After having no rotation players listed on the injury report on Thursday, 3 starters were “questionable” on Friday. How many of them played? Zero. OJ Frederique, CJ Daniels, and Ahamad Moten all missed today’s game at SMU.
• 12 penalties for 96 yards. There continues to be talk of “getting back to work” to fix this, but it gets worse every week.
• Jojo Trader with a terrible drop, which fell into the hands of a waiting SMU defender. SMU would score on the next play to tie the game at 7.

• Miami got a strip sack and fumble recovery on the 1st play of the 3rd quarter. That was overturned immediately. I, personally, think this was a terrible call on which Miami got screwed at warp speed. You judge the play for yourself.

• After a timeout, Miami ran it on 4th and 1. It went poorly.

• Clear and obvious pass interference on SMU not called. This is total and complete bullshit.

• No words

Team Grades

Offense: F

Lots of good counting stats, but a lack of points due to the plethora of penalties. Jojo Trader’s horrific drop-turned-interception was little league type stuff.

I don’t have much bad to say the run game, apart from running into 9 man boxes on a couple 3rd and 4th downs. It was ACTUALLY productive most of the day, and shockingly diverse.

But Miami left tons of points on the field and shock themselves in the di…..foot more times than I care to count.

We lost. F.

Defense: F

Miami’s offense left the defense out to dry time and time and time again. And the defense actually played well.

But whatever. We lost. F.

Special Teams: F

Kickoffs were great. Punting was incredible. Davis made both FG attempts. And the Malachi Toney had another explosive punt return. But Keelan Marion made the idiotic decision to field a kickoff and run out of bounds at the 10. And, one kick return almost went to the crib, if not for a Carter Davis form tackle.

But whatever. We lost. F

Coaching: Fireable.

The team was barely ready to play.

The penalty issues — which Cristobal and company have been “getting back to work on addressing” for 3 months now persisted, and in some instances got worse.

Another bad loss as a double digit favorite.

Another loss in November.

Another season wasted.

Fireable. The end.

That’s it for this installment of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Hop in the comments and let me know your thoughts.

Go Canes

More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos