3 takeaways from Shane Buechele’s nailbiting Week 1 win over Texas St
1) Takeaways from Shane Buechele’s Week 1 performance: SMU needs to stretch the field more
The rusty plays for Buechele and the Mustangs that largely resulted in the two interceptions, and a couple of fumbles, should be something that are shaken off in due time. The weird 2020 offseason in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic will cause that type of play to happen for a number of teams that are opening their seasons in early-to-mid September.
But Buechele has to make sure that trend of racking up multiple interceptions against bad teams doesn’t become one that sticks. The good news is that there’s something that SMU head coach Sonny Dykes and his staff can learn from this season opener, as it pertains to Buechele and his entire offense.
When SMU had a pocket that held up for at least four or five seconds without collapsing on Buechele, he was able to get set and find his open targets in deep and intermediate routes. He gets in a rhythm when he’s able to find his potent targets like Roberson Jr. and Rice when the pocket holds up consistently.
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On each of SMU’s touchdown drives in the win over Texas State, Buechele had at least one pass of 15 yards or more. Less than half of his completions resulted in gains of over a dozen yards (despite averaging more than 10.0 yards per pass).
Common mistakes like multiple holding penalties, blocking assignment mishaps, and interceptions/fumbles caused SMU to mess up a few of their promising drives. Fix that up, along with stretching the field a bit more often, can get this SMU offense to take a big step forward in Week 2.