Mustangs find footprint in run game against Tulsa, get physical with Tyler Lavine

TULSA, Okla. – At first, it looked like a shadow, cast below the brim of his SMU hat from the setting Tulsa sun. But once Tyler Lavine turned his head, and the black mark under his eye remained, it was clear it was something else.

Is that a black eye?

“Oh, no,” SMU’s senior running back said. “It’s eye black. It’s hard to get out after the game.”

The way he ran in Saturday’s pivotal 45-35 win over Tulsa, it would have made sense if he walked away with a shiner.

“I’m bruised up everywhere else,” Lavine said.

You don’t have to see the other guys he battled Saturday to know that he left an impression.

Lavine, seldom used before Saturday, had a huge day for the Mustangs. He finished with 17 carries for 72 yards and three touchdowns. Only his rushing yardage wasn’t a career high, and he missed setting a personal best in that category by a mere 3 yards.

“You guys saw it: When he gets rolling, man, he’s a load,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said after the win. “I wouldn’t want to tackle him.”

Lavine can have that effect on people. Lashlee said Lavine brings a physical mindset to SMU’s offense. He’s the same guy who wore a tank top to a team-building paintball event before the start of the season. Not many ball carriers, outside of fiction, wear cowboy collars.

And in reality, everything about the 5-11, 212-pound senior running back’s college career has been tough. The Cedar Park alum went through a year of basic training at the Army’s Preparatory Academy where they discovered that he not only had played through a broken foot during his senior season of high school, but he also was living with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, a condition that causes a rapid heartbeat.

Lavine had to leave the Army, but found a home as a walk-on for SMU. Since his arrival, he’s made it known: if he gets the ball, there’s going to be a physical collision. He said he’s working on his juking ability, but Lavine – “built like a car in the 70s,” according to one person in the press box Saturday – also has to stay true to his nature.

“Honestly,” Lavine prefaced when asked for his running mentality, “just try to run through as many faces as I can. I’m not the juking guy, but I’ve been working on it. Honestly, just get 4 [yards] or more. That’s my big thing.

“Three to four yards at this level is a good run, so that’s my goal.”

Goal accomplished Saturday. Lavine averaged 4.2 yards per attempt against Tulsa. Three of his shortest carries of the game actually were his touchdown runs, all of which were inside the Tulsa 2-yard line.

Lavine’s physical running also set a standard Saturday for a SMU team that needed some dependability. Redshirt freshman quarterback Preston Stone made his first career start in place of Tanner Mordecai, who didn’t clear concussion protocol in time for the game. Stone excelled in the first half, helping the Mustangs jump out to a 21-7 lead, but left the game before halftime with what was believed to be a broken left collarbone, according to two people with knowledge of the injury. He’s probably out for the season.

In Stone’s place, true freshman Kevin Jennings took his first career snaps.

At halftime, with the offense preparing to play with a new quarterback, the coaches decided they had a foundational touchstone.

“If you would’ve been in the locker room at halftime, guys said, ‘We’re going to run the football down their throats,’” SMU quarterback coach Jonathan Brewer recalled. “That was the mentality.”

Jennings, recalling the second-half game plan, added: “They couldn’t stop the run, so we were just going to pound the ball and win the game.”

The physical running game from Lavine and Velton Gardner, who had 18 carries overall, forced Tulsa’s attention, Lashlee said, and opened up one-on-one, man coverage on the outside receivers. Jennings carved it up in the second half, completing eight of 11 passes for 91 yards and a touchdown, helping the Mustangs even their record and increase their bowl eligibility chances.

For Lavine, Saturday was a game for which he’s waited all season. He had four carries through the first five games. He had 13 the previous two games with injuries to Tre Siggers, but it wasn’t like the load he carried Saturday with T.J. McDaniel also out and starting running back Camar Wheaton hurt in the first quarter.

“He’s everything that’s great about college football,” Lashlee said of Lavine. “He’s a winner, he doesn’t complain the first four or five games … he hardly plays, and he’s been banged up a little, too. He just plays through. Whatever it takes.

“He does everything right, and that’s why he’s going to play.”

Lavine never had a bruised ego about his situation. And what’s his reward? Bruises everywhere else.

Twitter: @JoeJHoyt

Find more college sports coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.