How SMU is adjusting to coast-to-coast travel, demanding ACC schedule with Stanford trip

As much as SMU’s first power-conference season requires adjustments on the field, the team is learning to adjust to some challenging off-the-field factors it’s never faced before.

While SMU is familiar with East Coast travel, as the American Athletic Conference was heavily concentrated out east, the West Coast travel is still new — and requires SMU to do a little extra strategizing beforehand.

The Mustangs are playing their second game with a 5 p.m. PT start this season. They opened the year at Nevada and will now take on Stanford on the road this week before traveling to the opposite coast for an 8 p.m. ET kick against Duke the following week.

“Teams have been doing it for years, going to Pac-12 schools and playing,” head coach Rhett Lashlee said “Everyone’s got parts of their schedule that are more positive and others that are more challenging. Back-to-back road games on each coast, but I like the challenge.”

SMU plans to travel back after Saturday’s game like it did against Nevada and likely won’t arrive in Dallas until 5 a.m. CT. Lashlee said the team debated whether it should stay the night or return after the game, as it learns how to adjust to the new coast-to-coast conference it’s in.

“There’s concerns of doing it either way. You stay, it’s out of routine. You get back at like 5 a.m. on a Sunday,” he said. “There was a little bit of a hangover after the Nevada trip. It’s like taking a red eye, but I think by and large that will give us the best chance to stay in a routine.”

SMU will have to get used to the West Coast travel. The ACC schedule is laid out so that the 14 returning teams won’t have to travel to California in back-to-back seasons. SMU, on the other hand, has annual matchups with Cal and Stanford and is set to travel to Cal next season.

But its location in North Texas makes that trip a little more bearable than the one its East Coast counterparts have to take.

In addition to gearing up for the new travel schedule, the Mustangs are also adjusting to the grind of playing 10 consecutive power-conference games. It’s the first time in decades that SMU has faced a schedule of this caliber.

At times this season, it’s started to see its depth be depleted as a result.

The Mustangs have battled injuries to multiple running backs, a defensive lineman and a wide receiver in the most recent stretch of games.

Against Louisville, defensive tackle Tank Booker and running back LJ Johnson Jr. weren’t fully healthy. Neither was running back Brashard Smith, who was dealing with a shoulder injury. The Mustangs were also without wide receiver Romello Brinson, who continues to deal with bursitis.

The bye week came at the right time to get most of those players back to full speed.

“I think we’re as healthy as we’ve been in a minute,” Lashlee said. “You’re never healthy after the first game of the season. Our guys are banged up with bumps and bruises, normal football stuff, but the bye week helped them.”

Brinson is the only player SMU expects to be without on Saturday.

The Mustangs have the advantage on paper when they travel to Stanford Saturday and enter as double-digit favorites over the the Cardinal.

But SMU is still in uncharted territory this season, as it waits to see how it’ll respond to the most demanding schedule it’s faced in any of its players’ lifetimes.

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