PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
2023 American Athletic Conference Football Championship Game
American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco
SMU Head Coach Rhett Lashlee
Tulane Head Coach Willie Fritz
November 27, 2023
AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE COMMISSIONER MIKE ARESCO
I first would like to congratulate Rhett Lashley and SMU who are making their first appearance in the championship game and Willie Fritz and Tulane our defending champions who are now playing for a second consecutive title.
Best wishes also to Preston Stone, who I know was injured in the SMU-Navy game. We are obviously thinking of him and hope he makes a speedy and full recovery.
I mention the two presidents, Gerald Turner at SMU and Mike Fitts at Tulane, because interestingly, both have served on the College Football Playoff Board of Managers. Gerald Turner had many years of distinguished service and Mike Fitts has done a great job replacing him recently. Isn’t it interesting that two teams competing for that CFP (New Year’s Six) spot, both presidents have served on the Board of Managers?
We are extremely excited to be back at Tulane University in New Orleans for our championship game. We had an incredible environment there last year, all thanks to the staff at Tulane, who did a magnificent job as the host institution.
There have been a lot of changes in college football this year. We have a reinvented conference and I am proud that we haven’t missed a beat that. Our teams, as you know, are well positioned to reach a New Year’s Six bowl game again for the seventh consecutive year. Think about that – seven consecutive years. Seven may be a lucky number for us.
We have two outstanding top-25 teams in our championship game, one ranked in the CFP and we hope another by tomorrow. This is one of six conference championship games between top-25 team. Our two teams have a combined record of 21-3. They have won a combine 18 games in a row. They’re remarkable considering the competition. Both teams went 8-0 in conference play. The three losses are to teams that are in the top 12 nationally, Ole Miss and Oklahoma, or finished as a national runner up last season, TCU.
We are thrilled to have the game on ABC for the ninth consecutive year. Think about that, nine consecutive years that we’ve had this game on ABC – a tremendous showcase for our conference. We are excited to show a national television audience what kind of teams we have here in The American.
On SMU’s prospects of a New Year’s Six bowl if the Mustangs win
I really do think SMU would be deserving and I hope they would get it. Strength of schedule is critical. SMU played at Oklahoma, and it was competitive midway through the fourth quarter. Let me ask you, would the teams that would be potentially competing with (SMU) for New Year’s Day have done that? At Oklahoma and then at TCU, that’s a rivalry game, another road game against a reputable P5 team.
Both SMU and Tulane played a Memphis team that lost by seven points to Missouri, and you know the kind of season they’ve had. What SMU has done recently, 52 points against Navy in the first half, 52 recently against Tulsa, and what they’ve done in the conference, is nothing short of remarkable.
Should they win on Saturday, then they are absolutely deserving. Our league has the four best teams in the so-called G5, with Memphis just being edged out by the other two and UTSA, an oustanding team that was dominating its competition and then just ran into a tough game at Tulane. This league is a really sound league. One of the reasons we didn’t have as many bowl teams is because our top four were so good. We had three teams that went undefeated in the conference (until the final week), Memphis won most of its games, and some other teams like Rice, who is bowl-eligible, and USF, which gave Alabama all they wanted and is going to a bowl.
I think SMU would absolutely be worthy. Whoever wins this game will be very worthy. If Tulane wins, it almost seems like almost a certainty. But I think if SMU should win, they should be the team and I will make that point all week.
SMU HEAD COACH RHETT LASHLEE
On the status of QB Preston Stone
He had an appointment today with the specialist to confirm what we all feared – he broke his lower leg. So he’ll be out for the remainder of the season. Really unfortunate for him. He was having a fantastic season and you know, may have played his best two halves of football – the second-half at Memphis and in the first half last week. He was 14 of 19 for 322 and three touchdowns. It’s the most yards of quarterbacks thrown in a single quarter since 2019. What he did in the first quarter, he was just really clicking. I think his growth and development all year has been exceptional. So we’re really proud of how he performed this year. We’ve got some great quarterbacks in this league, but I think you could argue he’s just as good as any of them. So we’re going to miss him.
There’s probably not a lot of teams that if they lost their starting quarterback could feel as good as we do. You know, you look at other teams that are vying to be in the playoffs or struggling with this situation, but. we’ve got a guy who won a state championship just two years ago here in Dallas in Kevin Jennings. He’s played in some big time moments this year already. He came in in the Rice game and led us on a big scoring drive in the last few minutes that was necessary to secure that win. Came in at Tulsa and played the whole half after Preston got knocked out. And then last year, when Tanner (Mordecai) got knocked out, came in and led us on a 90-yard touchdown drive against Memphis. You can’t replace the experience in the production that Preston had, but that’s not what we’re asking Kevin to do. We feel like we have a good team and we feel like if Kevin will just show up and be Kevin, that he’s more than enough.
On the injury to Preston Stone
It’s the fibula. So kind of the upper ankle-lower leg. From everything we’ve been told, it’s really clean, it’s something that he should make a 100% recovery in some time. I don’t know exactly yet if he’ll be back to the beginning of spring ball, but you know, I would think by the middle of March he should be almost back up throwing and doing everything. You have a full summer and offseason and be just fine for the future. Unfortunately, his season will come to an end, but he’s going to be OK long term.
On QB Kevin Jennings’ poise
It’s just kind of one of the strengths of who he is. He’s just very even keel. You hear the term he’s the same guy every day? That’s what helped him win the first DISD state title in, you know, 50 or 60 years his senior year at South Oak Cliff High School here in Dallas. It’s what turned us on to recruit him right when we got hired for the job. He’s been that that way ever since he got here. He’s super talented. He can throw it. He can run it. It’s been really hard – we’ve got so much depth on our team. We feel like a lot of positions this year, we’ve had co-starters and with quarterbacks in those positions, it’s hard to do that, but if you could, he’s talented enough to have been playing, and you don’t always think that about your backup. There’s usually a reason they’re the backup.
You don’t get the reps during the week and then you’re thrown in and he’s handled that well. That’s a little different when you’ve never started, so you know there’ll be some probably different nerves, but he’ll overcome that. That’s kind of been who we are this year, just a team next man up mentality. Offensively, we got a lot of good players, but it’s been a different running back, different receiver each week and we had our first receiver finally have a 100-yard game Week 12. Same thing on defense. I think we have over 20 guys on our defense with over 20 tackles but at least going into last week, we didn’t have single guy in the top 25 in the league. So it’s been a next man up when guys get nicked up or banged up, and it’ll be no different with Kevin.
On what has allowed SMU to reach The American Championship Game for the first time
From my time here as OC, and then even being back in the first year (as head coach), if we wanted to have a chance to compete for the championship, we couldn’t just have top-10 offenses; we had to have a championship-caliber defense. You look at Tulane and what they did last year, they had a championship-caliber defense coupled with a big-time quarterback and running back, really good receivers and they’ve done it again this year. You look at UTSA. That team that was coming down the stretch. They have a really good defense this year and so the reality of it is we haven’t had a top-40 defense at SMU in 40 years and so we felt like that had to change if we wanted to change our overall result as a team – and our staff did a great job. We had some really good returning players like Elijah Chatman, DeVere Levelston and Nelson Paul and on and on. But we went out and we were very aggressive in recruiting. Brought in some transfer defensive linemen that had really stepped up and made a huge impact. And some transfer DBs. And so we feel like we upgraded our roster and added value to those guys returning on defense and then at the same time, we have to give Scott Simmons and our entire defensive staff a ton of credit. You know, Scott’s a guy, when I hired him, had back-to-back top-15 defenses at Liberty. And so he just needed to get one year here, get a system in place, maybe fill some holes like we did, and they were able to put guys in position and create a lot of confidence. Fortunately, we have played some really good defense this year and it helped us get here.
On Defensive Coordinator Scott Simmons
It was really a couple of things. Experience was No. 1. You know our business is tough. You got to have trust and loyalty with people that are on staff and Scott and I had a chance to work together in 2012 on staff at Arkansas State with Gus Malzahn. He was a defensive quality control (assistant) in our first year there, so we knew each other. We had met each other and had a season together. We actually won a conference championship that year and won 10 games and then I went with Gus on to Auburn. He went his separate way and had a great career. But that was the first thing. I knew who he was so there’s some familiarity. I know Hugh Freeze really well, was able to call him, get his opinions of him.
And then the biggest thing is, yes, the numbers are important. They had a really good defense, particularly in pass defense. We had been really poor over the last decade against the pass here. And so it’s like, hey, how do we keep from letting people throw for three and four hundred yards a game every week on us? They have been one of the top pass defenses in the country at Liberty.
And then the last part that really made sense to me is he had done it with a guy like Hugh Freeze who spreads the field and plays with up-tempo offense, much like we like to do, and they still had a really quality defense. Which to me meant he could work well with just what we want to do as a team philosophically so I just felt like it would be a good fit. Last year we made some really good strides in our pass defense but overall, we weren’t where we wanted to be. But we made a big jump this year. And I think our players deserve a ton of credit for it.
On RB Jaylan Knighton’s availability
We’ll have all those guys, you know, Jaylan Knighton. And LJ Johnson practiced off and on last week. They just had some minor ankle injuries coming out of the Memphis game. They practiced. They warmed up, they were available. With it being senior day, we started Tyler Lavine. He was healthy and so we were going to start the game with those two and see how it. And you know, we were fortunate enough to get a lead pretty early. And so Coach Hall did a good job of just not putting those guys in and hopefully that extra week of rest will help them be, as you know, as close to 100% as a running back can be in Week 13. But we expect to have all those guys available this week.
On Kevin Jennings’ work with the first team before the North Texas game
Every experience you can get as a starter is valuable. And to your point, he repped really up until our day-before-the-game run-through. He repped like he was the starting quarterback that entire week because Preston wasn’t able to do anything till the day before the game. So I think that’s just a little thing, but every little thing helps.
Look, here’s the deal. A lot of the stuff that people want to make a big deal about, it’s going to happen. Pregame, the night before the game, and warmups, once you start the game. He’s played a lot of football. He’s played in a championship game in the state of Texas at AT&T Stadium – there’s not an environment that is going to bother him. He was on the road with us at Oklahoma – he’s come in in those moments. He just needs to go out and do what what our team has done all year and what he’s done ever since he’s been here. Just go play, be the best version of himself, understand he’s got a great team around him and he doesn’t have to go win it. He just got to go be Kevin. And I think if our team can just do what they need to do around him, he’ll be just fine.
On memories of SMU’s loss at Tulane last year
That was the low of our season last year. It was really the only game that I felt like we just didn’t show up and play well – and credit Tulane. I mean, they whipped us, so it was a bad combination. I’m not trying to say they didn’t earn the win. They whipped us in every facet. Offense, defense, special teams, coaching, the whole deal. And on top of it, we just we didn’t play very well, and it was a really bad combination and they beat us. Really bad.
So you know, it is a championship game but you treat it like a road game if you’re us. Fortunately, we were able to go forward. We have a ton of respect for that team and what they’ve done in the last five or six years. There’s been a lot of really good SMU-Tulane battles in the regular season, so hopefully we’ll give a better game this time.
On how the team reacted to the news on Preston Stone’s injury
The team was disappointed for Preston. You know, everybody’s bummed. When you work your tail off as hard as he did. He did throw for over 3,000 yards, I mean, 28 touchdowns, six interceptions, as aggressive as we are and what he does to value the ball. Man, just his development. I mean you would love for him to be able to carry this through the end, but that’s part of being a team sport, so they’re disappointed for him, but they’re not, I don’t think, worried or concerned at all, because they know who Kevin is and they know who our team is. And so they’re disappointed for him, but they’re excited to go play on Saturday afternoon and I know they’ll play just as hard, and Preston will be there with us and leading us, just won’t be leading us on the field.
On his contract extension announced today
I think it’s a testament to what our entire staff and our team and our players have done in these two years. You know it’s exciting and humbling to have our university’s leadership and our athletic leadership’s belief that we’re the right staff here at SMU, not only this year, to finish the year, but to lead us into the future. I think that’s one of the things as we continue to hopefully take our program step-by-step every year to where we would like to be on an annual basis. I think stability is a good thing. It’s good in recruiting, it’s good for our families. Contrary to what a lot of people think, coaches don’t love moving around the country. And so we’re humbled. We’re excited that the university leadership believes in us. Thankful to Doctor (Gerald) Turner and Rick Hart, David Miller and everyone else, but it’s really. It’s a recognition of the kids and the players and what they’ve done. I mean, for us to go to a bowl last year and then to win 10 games this year – hopefully it creates some stability for those guys.
TULANE HEAD COACH WILLIE FRITZ
On SMU
SMU has had a phenomenal year. I’ve been very, very impressed. You know (Rhett Lashlee) is right with what they’re doing defensively. They’ve always had an extremely strong offense. They do a good job in the kicking game, but they’re playing lights out on defense and you know it will be a tremendous challenge for us Saturday.
On SMU’s pass rush
That’s tough, because you’ve got talented rushers doing a good job schematically on getting the guy free and mixing up coverages on the back end where you hold on the ball a little bit longer than you want to at times. So we’re going to have to pick our spots. You certainly don’t want to get in situations where they know that you’re going to be dropping back and throwing the football. And when that occurs, there’s probably going to be some issues, so you’ve got to mix it up with the run and pass. I know that sounds simple, but it’s something that you’ve got to do, against a team that can really rush the passer like SMU can.
If he expected to have to lean on his defense more
It’s kind of played out that way during the season. There’s different ways that we needed to win games based on availability of players, we’ve had quite a few injuries, and also against the opponent that we were playing, whether they were strong on offense or defense. And the defense has really risen to the challenge over the last few weeks. You always hope you’re good in all three phases but certainly we we’ve taken a really good step forward here in the last few weeks defensively.
I think Coach Wood and the defensive staff have done an excellent job. The kids have bought into what we’re doing. There were some similarities what we did last year compared to this year, but there are also a lot of differences and I think over time our guys were able to pick up what we’re doing and the nuances of it. The game happens so fast and you have to make adjustments with calls and changing calls, shifts and motions and tempo and all those different kind of things. And I think our guys have developed being very comfortable with what we’re doing defensively. It’s allowed us to play fast, play better.
On the status of WR Jha’Quan Jackson and WR Lawrence Keys
We’re hoping that Jha’Quan is going to be able to play this weekend. I don’t think Lawrence is. But we feel pretty good about Jha’Quan being able to play this weekend.
On QB Michael Pratt’s health
Well, throughout the course of the year, he hasn’t always been 100%, but he’s in good shape right now. He’s a dual-threat quarterback, so there’s going to be times where he had a couple of tough runs – last Friday as well – but he’s healthy and doing well.
Michael Pratt’s championship game experience
It’s huge. You know, you always want to have experience there if you can. There’s not a whole lot you can throw at him that he hasn’t seen many times over and over and over again, whether it’s the run game of the pass game, fronts, second level, coverages, whatever it might be. So it’s nice to have a guy that’s been in a bunch of battles, understands what we’re doing offensively. I’ve mentioned it before, this is only the first time in his career he’s had the same offensive coordinator two years in a row and I think that each week that I think helps out a little bit more.
On SMU QB Kevin Jennings
First of all, I really feel bad about Preston Stone. He’s had a tremendous season and all coaches and players don’t want to see that happen to anybody. So he’s got our best wishes. I know that. But you always prep for what if this guy’s going to play, what if this guy isn’t going to play, the second team guy, when you get towards the middle of the week, you started even going back and looking at some high school tape if you don’t have a lot of college tapes. There’s probably a little different skill set and probably a few things differently that they’ll do with the offense with having another quarterback start.
On blocking out noise of the coaching carousel
Well, you kind of hope you’re in this position, I guess every year. That means things are going pretty well, but it’s easy for me to do it. I just work on the task at hand, and it’s all I’m concerned about. And, you know, as I tell my kids and players and coaches at the beginning of the year. I will never be a distraction to Tulane football and the only thing that I’m concerned about is the ballgame at 3:00 on Saturday.
