SMU football HC reveals how Mustangs communicated plays with Kevin Jennings during power outage

It was a unique game between SMU and Florida State on Monday night.

Delayed more than two hours, the Mustangs and Seminoles began their ACC clash without many of the features of modern football, including, but not limited to, coach-to-player helmet communication due to a power outage. This, in particular, could have been a major issue for SMU, as head coach Rhett Lashlee said that his team had not practiced without the coach-to-player communication system in two years.

Fortunately for Lashlee and his Mustangs, it did not derail their season opener, and they orchestrated a late scoring and ultimately game-winning drive to take a 27-24 lead in Tallahassee.

Speaking with Pat McAfee on his show today, Lashlee explained how his team managed without the technology that they had relied on and which eventually returned during the course of the game.

“We like to play with tempo anyway, so we already signal everything,” Lashlee said. “But two years ago, they gave us coach to player. And so when we aren’t going fast, we do huddle up. I’m able to talk to Kevin [Jennings] until 15 seconds on the clock, just like they do in the NFL. And look, now in this day of college sports, where espionage, legal espionage, stealing signals, and all that’s a thing. When you’re not going fast, it’s important to be able to huddle so people can’t pick your signals, and [we] kind of lost that. So we were actually going old school.

“When I say old school, when we weren’t going fast, I was telling them to huddle, and Kevin was running out to the numbers, and I was coming out to the numbers and telling him the play, and then he was running in to the huddle because we didn’t want to risk signaling and them being able to pick what we had going on.”

"When we weren't going fast last night Kevin was running out to the numbers and I was telling him the play..

We didn't want them to figure out what we had going on" ~ @rhettlashlee #PMSLive https://t.co/mUZkevMPZm pic.twitter.com/G6fiHMcFMj

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) September 8, 2026

The adjustments seemed to work just fine, as Jennings, despite throwing two interceptions, had 430 yards and three touchdowns. As a whole, SMU outgained Florida State by 261 yards and averaged nearly nine yards per play.

SMU, ranked 17th in the nation, will host UC Davis this Saturday in Dallas before going back on the road for another ACC matchup. The Mustangs will visit Louisville, which is coming off a close loss to Ole Miss, on Sept. 19.

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