A defense can win fourth down and still watch its reward evaporate before the offense has crossed the line of scrimmage. That was a costly third-quarter experience for SMU Saturday at Gerald J. Ford Stadium, where the Mustangs defeated Boston College 25-16 and moved to 4-1.
Boston College failed on fourth-and-6 at its own 44 with 4:33 remaining in the third. That gave the Mustangs a short field and a nine-point lead. Four plays later, it was staring at second-and-39 from its own 27. Soon enough, the ball was at the 16 and headed away on a punt.
A promising possession, processed into scrap
Three holding calls did most of the damage. A 9-yard sack then deepened the retreat.
The first snap from the BC 44 was a Kevin Jennings run that went nowhere. A holding call on Randy Pittman Jr. erased it and imposed a 10-yard penalty, moving SMU to its own 46. Kendrick Raphael then gained 1 yard, leaving second-and-19.
That was when the phantom progress appeared. Jennings completed a pass to Yannick Smith that covered 22 yards and would have carried the Mustangs to the BC 31. The play was nullified by another holding call on Pittman.
The ball instead went to the SMU 37, with second-and-29 on the board. The completion was real as an event in the sequence and worthless as football accounting—an impressive trick, if the goal was to make 22 yards disappear.
The next pass was incomplete, but that snap also vanished under a holding call, this time against Woods. Three holding penalties had now erased three plays. Boston College had surrendered the apparent completion, but the penalty eliminated its benefit, and SMU had converted a favorable starting point into a steadily worse down-and-distance problem.
Demetrius Ballard then sacked Jennings for 9 yards. That pushed SMU to third-and-48 at its own 18. Raphael lost 2 more yards, and Will McSparron punted from the 16. The field-position ledger ran from BC 44 to SMU 16: 40 yards backward after the defense had just created possession.
The flags were the central damage, but the sack supplied the final shove. The sequence was not proof that SMU’s offense could never function; it was proof that a winning team can make a good defensive play nearly irrelevant through preventable self-inflicted yardage.
The counterweight is substantial
SMU did have drives that earned their points. Its opening possession started at the 25 and reached the end zone in eight plays, with Derrick McFall ripping off 23 yards on third-and-6 before Raphael scored from 2 yards.
Jennings’ 10-yard run came on second-and-11 and set up third-and-1; Raphael handled the conversion and touchdown, a small but important distinction in a game full of disappearing plays.
