Too little too late.
The SMU football team mounted a second half comeback attempt here Thursday night, falling short of tying the game and sending it into overtime. Tulane held off a furious effort to win its first conference game of the year 34-27.
June Jones’ comeback kids put on a show in the second half, trailing 31-7, SMU scored 13 unanswered points to make a game of it at 31-20 early in the fourth quarter. Another touchdown with 2:03 left in the contest left the score at 34-27.
SMU showed early in the game that they were going to pull out all stops to stay in this contest, their first possession was capped off with a surprising fake punt in their own territory. The standout senior athlete scrambled for over 30 yards for a Mustang first down.
Jones’ offense couldn’t get untracked in the first half; with several drop passes hindering the Mustang’s passing attack.
True freshman quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell ended the game with 21 of 44 passes for 256 yards and three touchdowns, two coming in the second half.
Jones wasn’t pleased or satisfied coming close to a road win.
"It was really disappointing because we certainly had an opportunity to win a road game,” Jones said after the ball game. “I don't understand why we got so uptight being in a game that we had a shot at winning. There was nothing to be uptight about we might as well of had some fun and catch the ball."
Jones showed a little frustration on the dropped balls.
“We catch the ball pretty good in practice, but we still didn't catch it in the first half at all,” Jones said. “The kids work extremely hard, they didn’t quit, we just have to learn how to play two good halves of football.”
Mitchell took some of the blame for their first half performance.
"It's frustrating making elementary mistakes [in the first half], misreads, missed blocks, dropped passes, badly thrown balls. That's the frustrating part. We all know we've got to wake up earlier. First half of every single game, we come out middle of the second quarter and just pick it up. Then the second half comes and we lose that momentum and have to pick it up again. Really, we just have to get out there and get it from the get go."