Tanner Mordecai tossed four touchdown passes while Ulysses Bentley IV rushed for 153 yards and a touchdown as visiting SMU defeated TCU 42-34 on Saturday at Fort Worth, Texas, in the 100th meeting between the teams.
Mordecai, entered leading FBS with 16 touchdown passes, bolstered his total with scoring strikes to four different receivers: Danny Gray, Reggie Roberson Jr., Rashee Rice and Jordan Kerley. Mordecai added his first rushing TD this season and passed for 245 yards.
Bentley paced a dominating ground attack for the Mustangs (4-0) that generated 350 yards. Tre Siggers chipped in 110 rushing yards as SMU amassed 595 total yards and averaged 7.4 yards per play. The Mustangs earned consecutive wins in the series for the first time since 1992-93.
TCU (2-1) matched the Mustangs’ offensive assault prior to halftime but failed to keep pace in the second half.
The Horned Frogs’ Max Duggan passed for 276 yards and three touchdowns while Zach Evans produced 183 total yards and a touchdown. TCU was undone by an early third-quarter turnover and its inability to convert on three Mordecai interceptions.
Explosive plays helped both SMU and TCU to score touchdowns on their first two drives. Mordecai hit Gray for a 68-yard score and SMU led 6-0 on its longest play of the season. The Mustangs pulled ahead 14-7 when Siggers’ 46-yard run led to a 4-yard Mordecai scoring run.
Duggan found Taye Barber for a 60-yard gain on a TCU drive that culminated with Derius Davis’ 13-yard touchdown catch that evened the score at 14-all. Evans’ 46-yard catch-and-run allowed the Horned Frogs to take a 21-14 lead with 13:31 left in the half but the Mustangs kept coming.
Mordecai hit Roberson for a 29-yard touchdown as SMU knotted the score at 21-all early in the second quarter.
Momentum swung on the opening kickoff of the second half when Carter Ware was flagged for holding. Turner Coxe followed with a strip-sack of Duggan that DeVere Levelston recovered at the TCU 3-yard line and Bentley followed two plays later with a 1-yard touchdown run.
When TCU managed only a field goal after a 47-yard return of a Mordecai interception to the SMU 16, Mordecai answered with a 26-yard scoring pass to Kerley.
–Field Level Media