SMU and Kevin Jennings are a perfect fit — with big CFP and Heisman Trophy dreams
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He has tried to tell everyone all offseason, taken every opportunity to spread the word of Kevin Jennings and leave no doubt.
“He needs to be talked about more,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee says.
So here we go.
Jennings, SMU’s senior quarterback, has the No. 1 winning percentage (73 percent) of all returning quarterbacks in the power conferences.
He has the third-most wins of all power conference returning quarterbacks.
He’s top 10 in passing touchdowns, passing yards and total offense of power conference returning quarterbacks.
PROGRAM RANKINGS: Big Ten | SEC | ACC | Big 12
By the end of September, he will break nearly every SMU passing record, and has a loaded team that two years ago forced itself back into the national conversation after long ago being left for dead — with a whole lot of booster cash and the elite play of Jennings — primed to reach its second College Football Playoff in three years.
Get on board … the train is just getting started @Kevin8Jenningshttps://t.co/IUfI7ZE4I5
— Rhett Lashlee (@rhettlashlee) June 28, 2026
Want to know why Lashlee has spent all offseason touting his quarterback on social media, why SMU started a Heisman Trophy campaign in July — the first true campaign since the Pony Express in the 1980s?
Because this player, this team, is about to leave no doubt where it stands in the national conversation.
“We proved last year we we weren’t a one hit wonder,” Lashlee said. “We have staying power. We’ve got to do it again this year. We’ve got to do it enough times for people to believe it, and for it to become who we are.”
That begins and ends with Jennings, and a dive into the deep end he has embraced since he packed up his things and moved across the Metroplex to the swanky campus in Highland Park.
Maybe that’s why Jennings — not the most talkative player in college football over the last three seasons — is all-in with Lashlee on the media blitz. Time to let everyone know who he is, beyond his electric play on the field.
He drives the engine, he moves the sticks. Shoot, he stayed when he could’ve left after last season and found a brighter pastures like so many other of his quarterback brethren.
So he may as well talk about it and soak in spotlight when SMU arrives Friday at ACC media days.
A Heisman campaign isn’t pressure. Nor is living up to a billionaire alum paying for SMU’s ticket into the ACC.
It’s not a coach who has developed elite quarterbacks over the last two decades as a longtime assistant and then finally head coach at SMU, telling anyone who will listen for seven months this offseason that Jennings is as good any of them. As good as anyone in college football in 2026
As good as Arch Manning or Dante Moore or Julian Sayin or Trinidad Chambliss.
Pressure is your team losing three games in 2025 in the final seconds. It’s having a fourth-quarter lead in all four losses last season, and losing all four games.
That’s the difference from backing up the 2024 College Football Playoff run and making a bold statement about a program that bounced around the WAC, Conference USA and American since the mid 1990s, since before billionaire booster David Miller decided he’d seen enough — and just bought SMU’s way into the power conferences.
Pressure isn’t your coach, two seasons later, telling everyone just how good his quarterback, his team, can be this fall — and then having to back it up.
Jennings’ final college season has arrived, and the horizon line just got a lot closer. He doesn’t care about the bloated numbers, or the highlight reel plays.
Doesn’t care about his 5-1 career record against Miami, Louisville, Clemson and Florida State — including the show he orchestrated in last year’s overtime defeat of the Hurricanes team that was one score from winning the national title.
He cares about the ugly playoff loss to Penn State, when he played his worst game of his career at the worst time.
Or the loss to Baylor last year on the final play of overtime. Or the loss to Wake Forest on a game-ending 50-yard field goal at the buzzer.
Or a three-point loss to California with 43 seconds remaining in the season finale when a win that would’ve sent SMU back to the ACC championship game with another spot in the playoff on the line.
Or showing up in 2022 with Missouri State as his only other legitimate offer — and the quarterback in front of him was bluechip recruit Preston Stone. The very quarterback Lashlee would rebuild SMU around, the local Highland Park star who grew up blocks from campus.
Jennings was Stone’s backup in 2023 until Stone sustained a season-ending injury before the American championship game — and there was Jennings, stepping in and executing an MVP performance while leading SMU to its first conference championship since those Pony Express glory days.
A job he never gave up again.
“Hardest thing I ever had to do as a coach,” Lashlee said. “Preston didn’t do anything wrong.”
It’s just that Jennings seems to do everything right.
A day from now, SMU and Jennings will show up at ACC media days, and Lashlee will preach again about his quarterback with the quick release and strong arm. He’ll talk about the innate leadership Jennings showed as soon as he arrived on campus, and how there are things he can do that others in college football simply can’t.
“We have a big vision,” Lashlee said. “We don’t want to limit ourselves. As a program, as a team.”
Now it’s time for everyone to hear about it.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB, and listen to him daily from 12-2 p.m. on 1010XL-Jacksonville.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: SMU and Kevin Jennings are a perfect fit — with big CFP and Heisman Trophy dreams
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