The Lazarus Program: SMU demolishes Pittsburgh in BBVA Compass Bowl

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SMU might not officially be back from the dead, but there sure are signs of life.

The Mustang defense forced two huge turnovers and used an overwhelming pass rush to help SMU (8-5) beat Pittsburgh 28-6 Saturday in the BBVA Compass Bowl.

SMU head coach June Jones won his second bowl game as a Mustang and 100th win overall as a head coach. Before Jones’ arrival, SMU had not been to a bowl game since 1984, three years before the program received the NCAA’s first and only “death penalty”. Now the Mustangs have been to a school-record three straight bowl games.

“I’m really proud of the defense,” Jones said, according to the Associated Press. “Really the defense has been that way all year. They’ve been the reason we’ve won eight games. We haven’t been as sharp on offense as we’ve been in past years.”

It couldn’t have been any sharper in the first quarter.

Quarterback J.J. McDermott threw a 50-yard touchdown to Darius Johnson on SMU’s second possession of the game. Johnson was wide open along the right sideline after Pittsburgh linebacker Kevin Adams blew single coverage.

McDermott completed 16 of 26 passes for 239 yards and a touchdown.

Johnson had seven catches for 120 yards. His 50-yard catch was the longest play in Compass Bowl history.

Pittsburgh (6-7) was coached by defensive coordinator Keith Patterson, and had only four other coaches on the bench alongside him. Head coach Todd Graham left the program in December for Arizona State and took four assistant coaches with him. He infamously reported the news to his players via text message.

You could feel their lack of inspiration.

After another a Pitt three-and-out, McDermott drove the Mustangs down the field for an eight play, 54-yard drive that culminated with him running in a one-yard touchdown. On Pitt’s following possession, quarterback Tino Sunseri rolled out of the pocket after a play-action fake and got sacked and stripped of the ball by Ja’Gared Davis.

SMU recovered on Pitt’s 27-yard line and Rishad Wimbley, a freshman defensive tackle weighing in at 280 pounds, ran in a two-yard touchdown. Wimbley became the Mustang starting back after Zach Line was injured for the season following the Navy game. He added a one-yard touchdown run in the third quarter.

Going into the second quarter, Pittsburgh had -6 total yards and was down 21-0. SMU’s 21 points was the most it had scored in a quarter all season. Pittsburgh needed momentum changing plays to go its way, but luck was not on the Panthers’ side, and neither were the whistles.

Following a field goal to make it 21-3, Pitt recovered an onside kick, but the refs declared an inadvertent whistle had been blown and therefore there had be a re-kick.

“Both officials came over and apologized to me and said they made a bad call,” Patterson said, according to the Associated Press. “They were very apologetic. There’s nothing you can do about that. But that was a big momentum-changer. It kind of got us into the game a little bit. We were fired up from that point on.”

It was an obvious lift to his team, but one can only imagine what kind of lift it would have been had the Panthers actually gotten the ball back and possibly put some more points on the board. Instead they began to play inspired defense, forcing a three-and-out and hoping the offense would follow suit. And it did, to an extent.

Pitt offensive coordinator Todd Dodge, who also filled in as the quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receivers coach, was finally able to get Sunseri in a groove. He began to call plays that had Sunseri make short two- and three-step drops, allowing him to get rid of the ball quickly, negating the brutal SMU pass rush.

After driving the Panthers from its own 16-yard line, Sunseri scanned the filed on third and goal from SMU’s five and snapped the ball. He got pressure from a blitz as he rolled to his right, and threw low and behind running back Isaac Bennet, who had to adjust to the ball. It bounced off Bennet’s hands when he was hit hard by cornerback Kyle Padron, and then bounced off Padron’s helmet into the air, right into the extended arms of  linebacker Stephon Sanders as he dove to the ground.

Stuck on its own four-yard line, the SMU offense stalled for its third straight possession and had to punt. The Panthers got the ball back with 4:38 left in the half, and a chance to make it an 11-point game, but a curious run call with under a minute left and a sack by Taylor Thompson forced Pitt to go for a field goal. Kevin Harper missed the 47-yarder.

He did score all of Pitt’s points, however, with kicks from 32 and 34, respectively.

Neither team was able to create a running game, with SMU rushing for 30 yards and Pitt gaining 29. However, SMU did have more balance in its attack, and won nearly every down at the line of scrimmage. McDermott had time to throw, while Sunseri was smothered.

The SMU defense finished with eight sacks, costing Pitt 55 yards.

The Pittsburgh offense had too little firepower to be able to come back from such a large deficit, no matter how early it was mounted. With Sunseri running for his life, he couldn’t get the ball downfield, and often resorted in inaccurate check downs and throwaways.

Sunseri completed 19 of 28 passes for 190 yards, an interception, and a fumble.

This is huge for SMU going forward. After two and a half decades of futility following the “death penalty,” the Mustangs are heading in the right direction and seem to have the right coaching staff in place to help the program rise from the ashes. I don’t know if Jones wants to stay and continue to build SMU, but I’m sure he will be seeing better offers coming his way soon.

On the other hand, we have Pittsburgh. Ever since Dave Wannstedt proved to be an awful coach without Ricky Williams carrying the ball 400 times a year, Pittsburgh has been in constant change. The Panthers have managed to win the Meineke Car Care Bowl against North Carolina in 2008 and the BBVA Compass Bowl last year against Kentucky, but this tumultuous year ended just about as bad as any bowl teams in the nation (Clemson fans have an argument to that crown).

On hand to witness the thumping was Pittsburgh’s newly hired coach, former Wisconsin offensive coordinator Paul Chryst.

“This is the culmination of their season,” Chryst said of his new team’s embarrassing loss, according to the Associated Press. “This wasn’t me.” He continued to say he has “a lot of appreciation for how they’re finishing things out.”

For Pittsburgh’s sake, I hope he is talking about the coaching staff. It was courageous for them to go out there with ten times more responsibility than they are used to, completely out of their comfort zone, and coach a pretty good game past the first quarter. When everyone else hopped a train headed for Arizona Sate, they stayed behind.

“There’s no doubt it’s been the most challenging four weeks of my life,” said Patterson, according to the Associated Press. “But the respect I have for these young men staying together and finishing was worth it.”

If Chryst is talking about the player’s performance … well then it isn’t going to be hard for Chryst to appreciate much of anything about the program that just hired him.

Surely not though …

Surely.

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