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Podcast: Locked On SMU - Daily Podcast on SMU Mustangs Football & Basketball Episode: SNUBBED: Kevin Jennings Excluded from On3 Top 100—Can SMU’s Star PROVE He Belongs? Transcript: It's the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Your daily college sports fix just got a lot smoother with the Everydayer Club. The energy of the college season is relentless, and we know your passion does not stop on Saturdays. The Everydayer Club is designed to keep you locked into the conversation with a completely ad-free listening experience. Whether it's the road to the playoffs, the chaos of the transfer portal, or a deep dive into the latest recruiting class, you get the insights without the interruptions. You also get a seat in our private Discord to talk sports with us in real time. Make your daily routine even better. Join the club by tapping the Everydayer Club link in the show notes. On3 released its top 100 players for the upcoming 2026 season, and with no Kevin Jennings on the list, it essentially means the SMU quarterback still has more to prove. You are Locked On SMU, your daily podcast on the SMU Mustangs, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What's up, everybody? Welcome to Locked On SMU. It's a Friday edition as we round out another week of the show. I'm Grayson Singleton. Thanks for tapping in with us here today on the show. Coming up, another player was on the top 100 list that On3 put out. PJ Williams is getting his due. We'll talk about that. Plus, we're going into the unknown with SMU basketball heading into next season. We'll talk about that to close up the show as well. Again, my name is Grayson Singleton, so let's go ahead and start with the top 100 players that On3 released for the 2026 season that omitted quarterback Kevin Jennings. Now, for some of you, this might get you into a little bit of an uproar. For some, it might make a lot of sense. Now, before I get into the take, let's provide a little context here. I've always said that Kevin Jennings right now is fringe top 10, but more in the 12 to 15 range of quarterbacks in the entire country. And if you look at the On3 list, there are 12 quarterbacks that are on the list, all of them not named Kevin Jennings. Now, the bottom tier of those can be debatable. You know, you've got Gunnar Stockton in there from Georgia, Drew Mestemacher from Oklahoma State, who has never taken a P4 snap. CJ Carr is on the list as well. Darian Vince is on the list. I think he's very unanimously regarded as better than Kevin Jennings, but we can debate that as well. Josh Hoover making the move to Indiana from TCU. So there are some at the bottom of the list that you can make some semblance of an argument that Kevin Jennings should deserve to be considered better than. But here's the reality of the situation when it comes to Kevin Jennings. I don't want to do the finger pointing. I don't want to do the disrespected. You've given people too much fodder to leave you off the list. And all this says is that Kevin Jennings still has more to prove. He's still got more to prove as a quarterback in the Power Four. And instead of victimizing ourselves here and, you know, playing the blame game or the victim game or whatever, let's look at the numbers and let's look at the data. The one thing that stands out about Kevin Jennings to his detriment is that he still continued to turn the ball over too much. And now we expect that to come down because, you know, another year in the system, you know, the offensive line hopefully is not as banged up as it was next year and should have a little bit more continuity to it. Hopefully Kevin himself gets through the season a lot healthier. But the reality of the situation is, though, even though Kevin Jennings has won about three-fourths of the games he's participated in and started over the course of his career, in his two roughly full seasons as a starter, he's thrown 11 interceptions and 13 interceptions. That's not going to cut it. Not when you look at a guy like Gunnar Stockton, who last season, even though his usage rate is not as high as Kevin Jennings is, Gunnar Stockton only threw five interceptions. So when you put those two together, you think, okay, who's giving their team a better chance to win? And yes, Gunnar Stockton has a lot more talent around him. That can't be disputed. But Gunnar Stockton isn't taking his team out of opportunities to win games. Even though he may not be the bus driver every single weekend, he's not serving to the detriment. And that's what you've got to look at with these quarterbacks. And when it comes to quarterbacks, you're looking at, okay, who puts their team in the best position, best chance to win? And yes, Kevin wins a ton of games, but there are guys that have won more, like a Gunnar Stockton. Now, do I think in a vacuum, if you just put everything in isolation and into a vacuum, do I think Kevin Jennings is better than Gunnar Stockton? Maybe. I think there's an argument to that point. I think there is an argument that, all things considered equal, you know, Kevin Jennings may have a higher athletic upside. I can see the argument there. But Gunnar Stockton is good. CJ Carr is good, even though he still hasn't really done anything to blow me away. But one thing he doesn't do is give the football away. Josh Hoover, you know, a guy that does give the ball away, except for the fact that, you know, he beat Kevin Jennings this year. So all that to say is that if you're Kevin Jennings, you still have more to prove. You still have room to grow. You still have room to get better. And even though you won a lot of games and you've had some success and you've been to the college football playoff, which is somewhere CJ Carr has not gone, which is somewhere Drew Mestemaker has not gone, which is somewhere Josh Hoover has not gone, even though he's joining the reigning defending national champions, you still have room to get better. And I think the omission from the top 100, when you look at there's only 12 quarterbacks on that list, proves that I think a lot of us have a very healthy opinion of Kevin Jennings right now. As it pertains to the information that we know right now, no projecting into the future. With the information that we know, and we say, at least I've said, 12 to 15 range in terms of a quarterback, I think where On3 dropped him, which was off the list, is very reasonable. Now, I think there is a lot of upward ability for Kevin to go. Now we're getting back into the projections conversation. And I do think that Kevin can be a top 100 player in college football this year. I do think that he can lead SMU back to the college football playoff. I do think that he can reduce the amount of turnovers. I do think that's all possible, but he's got to prove it. And this year, especially because he's going to test the waters of the professional ranks after this year, this is a big year for Kevin. He's got to put it all together this year because not only is this his last year, but this is a very quarterback rich NFL draft projected this year. If you go to the list and look at some of these guys who are atop the list from the quarterback position, the number two overall player, according to On3, is Dante Moore. The number eight overall player, which I think this is a little high, is Sam Levitt. The number nine player is Julian San. The number 10 player is Arch Manning, which I would have Arch above both San and Levitt. But those guys are going to be on their way to the lead. Then you've got the Darian Minsas of the world. Okay. Then you've got Lenore Sellers over there as well. So not only is this a big deal in terms of where he sits in the college football hierarchy, but also, okay, if Kevin wants to give himself the best chance to get drafted, he's got a ton of competition to go up against a ton. And I didn't even throw Josh Hoover into that conversation because he's certainly going to want to be a kid that wants to get drafted, but he's got a lot to prove as well. He's got to prove that he can cut down on his turnovers. So more to prove, more to prove, more to prove for Kevin Jennings. And when you're playing at a place like SMU, you might get shafted from every now and then. You might get a little shafted because you're one of the newer uprising places in the Power Four. You're not at a name brand school. You're going to get, you know, we get the low end of the sticks sometimes. And that's just how it works in college football. But if Kevin comes into the college football season with the more to prove mindset, if he is out there saying, you know what? Okay, fine. I'm not a top 100 player. I'm not a consensus top 100 player. Let me go out and show you why I am. And if you go out with that mindset instead of the victim mindset, then I think Kevin will handle his business and us as SMU fans will be very satisfied with what Kevin puts on tape if that is the direction that he's going to go. And I have no doubt that he will. But more to prove. That's where I land with Kevin Jennings right now. Is he a top 100 player? There's certainly an argument to that point. There's certainly an argument to the contrary. But right now he's left off the list from On3. So guess what? You got more to prove and you got more to work on when it comes to your game coming up next. On3 did take note of one PJ Williams. Okay. Hey, does SMU have one of the better tackles in all of college football? We'll talk about that next. 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Okay, so PJ Williams was on the list of top 100 players, according to On3. PJ, the tackle for SMU, comes in at 76 on the list, which I was pleasantly surprised to see. 76, right ahead of Ernest Green, tackle from Georgia, and right below an edge rusher from Oklahoma by the name of Taylor Wine. So PJ, one of the top 100 players. And it's interesting for PJ because a lot of feedback and a lot of things that I gather from draft experts around the, not just around college football, but people in the program as well, hold PJ in very high regard. Like people think PJ Williams could potentially, need to emphasize this, has the potential to backdoor his way into the first round of the NFL draft. Would I bank on that? No, I think he's going to be a day two pick. I think he would have to have a really bad season for him not to be a day two pick in the 2027 NFL draft. That's how good I think that kid is. And I think a lot of people also believe that as well. As a matter of fact, if you look at his standing among offensive tackles in On3's ranking, let's see exactly how many tackles are ahead of him in the list. I'm doing this on the fly as we speak. So in terms of offensive tackles ahead of PJ Williams, you have, if my computer will figure this out, figure yourself out. Okay, so Trevor Lok from Iowa, good player. Caden Green from Missouri, good player, could be a first round pick. Ja'Karius Peek from South Carolina. Austin Siriveld from Ohio State. Okay. Jordan Seaton from LSU. Yeah, really good player. Howard Sampson, really good player from Texas Tech. Michael Carroll, Alabama, and then PJ Williams. To me, if that ends up being a tackle-rich draft, PJ could probably find himself in the front end of the second round. But what this means for SMU is that you've got somebody to anchor this offensive line. And I don't know how long it's been since SMU's had a tackle the caliber of PJ Williams, but this is a dude that you can run behind, and this is a dude that Kevin can trust to protect whichever side PJ Williams is going to play. He did play right tackle last year. I'm very intrigued to see if they move him to left. I'm intrigued to see if that happens, because he is the best offensive lineman on this team, bar none. To me, there's no doubt about it. But he has been playing right, so it would be a little bit of a learn to move to the left side, you know, with body movements and things of that nature, and alignment and whatnot. But I wonder if they move him to left tackle. I'm very curious about that. Anyway. If he does, then Kevin says, my blind side's taken care of. And that is huge for a quarterback. That is huge for an offense. And in extension, it's huge to the team that PJ Williams could be that type of player at the left tackle position if that is indeed where SMU decides to go. But the people that I talk to, they're very high on PJ, and they're very high on the offseason he's had. And he's had a great offseason. He looks to be one of the captains for SMU this year. He looks to be one of the better players, just overall players, that SMU has this year. I mean, clearly, he's the nationally best player considered on SMU's team, so there's something there. But I really like what I think I'm going to get from PJ. I really, really do. And that will raise SMU's offensive ceiling. It's starting to seem like when you've got a left tackle the caliber of PJ Williams, and you have a quarterback that we think is going to take one more step, they hit the transfer portal well at tight end. Running back looks to be really good. Wide receiver, I've been told, looks really, really good. Starting to seem like this offense is going to do some damage. It's starting to look like this could be a special unit. And when you adjust for the schedule that SMU's going to play, you can start to, you know, fantasize about some pretty elite stuff. So, obviously, it starts in the trenches with a quality offensive line. You're not going to be able to have a great functioning offense without a good offensive line. I mean, I guess Texas did it last year with that horrible offensive line they had, but you don't really want to try to duplicate that. But it starts in the trenches and it starts up front, and PJ Williams is right there. And by the way, too, this is another thing this tells me. It's not as if PJ Williams just barely scratched his way onto the On3 list. He was 76. Like, comfortably in. So, I think it's a really good sign. And I always say that people locally can say things and they can prop up things because that's the team they see every single day, right? But when national people are getting involved here and saying, no, this guy can be a day two draft pick, maybe backdoors way into the first round. No, this guy is one of the 100 best players in all of college football. Okay, now I'm starting to really, really listen. When people whose job it is and the guy who put together this list at On3 by the name of Clark Brooks put that together. When a guy who is crunching film and gathering intel from all different sources says, yep, you're one of the 100 best players in the country, and that dude could be your left tackle, hard not to get excited about. I feel like that's something to get excited about right there when all the intel leads to people saying, your left tackle is one of the best 100 players in the country. Kind of like it. I kind of like it. But for SMU's offense to really get going and for them to have the type of season that I think they can, and then you put that with a defense that I think is going to be pretty good. I really don't know if I could say how good they'll be, but I think they'll be pretty good. Now you can start thinking about potentially beating at Florida State, potentially beating Louisville on the road. You know, you go through the weaker part of the schedule in October. We'll see what it looks like when you go to South Bend against Notre Dame. But you can start to think about, okay, maybe we can get back to the ACC Championship game. But that doesn't happen without strong interior offensive line play. And I like what they're getting, and I like the fanfare that PJ Williams is getting here because I think it validates something that a lot of us think around the SMU program, and that is that PJ Williams is a damn good player and deserves the respect of such. All right, coming up next here on Locked on SMU. One more segment here to go on a Friday edition of the show. Into the unknown we go with SMU basketball. There's such a, there's a floor, but, you know, there's a ceiling. And I'll tell you about it on the other side. Keep it here. Final segment of the week on Locked on SMU. Grayson Singleton here with you. Make sure you tap in with the Everydayer Club as well. Get ad-free shows compatible with Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Plus members only Discord access and more perks as well with the Everydayer Club. $5 a month. or $50 for the entire year, go to lockedonsmu.supercast.com or click the links in the description or the show notes to learn more about the Everydayer Club. Get your ad-free shows so you can listen to us in the car or in the gym without ad interruptions. Okay, so SMU basketball. The reactions to Jacob Patrick, some good, some bad. The reactions to Johan Munch, some good, some bad. The reactions to everybody that SMU's brought in has been met at some point with some level of skepticism, right? And then there's the whole Andy Enfield side of it all and he is pretty polarizing as well. But the best way I can describe this SMU basketball team going into next year, into the unknown, baby. Like they said in Frozen, into the unknown. And we get to that point because we just don't really know about really anything. But when you're a program that is just coming off of being a mid-major, that's kind of what you're gonna get. So we've got mid-major Tulane transfer, Rowan Brumball. We have mid-major North Texas transfer, David Terrell. And then you've got, I don't even know what to classify Oregon State as now, but with Johan Munch, and then you've got Jacob Patrick, a kid who only played 10 games and came off the bench. Even though his production in his moments were really solid. I mean, I don't know, even though it's a guy that came off the bench and was hurt, I don't know how you look at a dude that shot 46% from three and think, huh, I don't know if he could help us. Like, I don't know how you get to that point, but nevertheless, there's still some skepticism that has been met with the Jacob Patrick addition. And here's the thing, you're talking about dudes that have never played with each other. They're assembling a cast of characters from all over the country. You got Jalen Stewart coming in from UConn and Nick Cody coming in from Texas. And it's a lot of cats that haven't played together. They're from all over the place. And they're all going to be asked to do more in more elevated roles than they have been in their collegiate careers, save for Rowan Brumball. You know, Rowan Brumball is the only one here that has played a starting role and a role that I think is going to be pretty similar to the one he's going to play at SMU. All the other guys, for the most part, I would think there's going to be some level of elevation in what they are expected to bring to SMU this upcoming season. And that's a little strange because it's one thing if you have two or three dudes that you're asking to do that, but almost everybody on this roster, even the guys that were in the program last year, are going to be all in elevated roles. Jaden Toombs, I think this applies to. Billy White, we'll see what kind of role he carves out for himself, but it'll be elevated because he didn't play last year. Nigel Wall is the same way. We don't know anything, really, about what this basketball team is going to look like. Now, when you say that, when you're in the unknown, things can go really, really good. And, you know, things could hit the floor. There's an equal possibility of both, given health. There's an equal possibility of both because your starting point guard was at Tulane last year. Your best shooter coming back, it looks like your best shooter on the team, at least from what we know so far, is going to be a dude who only played 10 games, so you've got to see if he stays healthy. You have a 7'2 center, but he is pretty wiry, right? I mean, he looks thinner than Chet Holmgren, to be quite honest with you. So you got that going for you. It's kind of all up in the air. And that's okay, don't get me wrong, because the nature of college basketball, when you're trying to plug as many holes as SMU is, the nature of it is going to be a lot of unknowns. Like, SMU is not unique in this situation. But if you're somebody that, you know, was a little bit spooked because there's a lot that you don't know, yeah, I kind of empathize with you there. I'm thinking about this basketball team, and I think there's some pretty solid parts, but how they're all gonna gel, how they're all gonna translate to the ACC, the premier college basketball conference, maybe the Big 12 is that, I don't know. But you're right to ask questions. You're right to say, believe it when I see it, and I think this ultimately is going to be a believe it when I see it type of team because we just don't know. Now, that being said, I think there's a lot of good that can come out of it. I've said this before, but they are bigger. They are bigger, they've got more length, they've got more switchability. They project to be a better defensive team, which was something they were very putrid at in 2025, 26. So that alone right there, I think is very good. They got more athletic and they got bigger. I think that's a big deal. And if that was your goal and that was what you really were hell bent on trying to accomplish, then you get a check mark from me. Maybe not a check plus, maybe not an A plus, but I think you get a check mark there that you accomplished that. Now we wait to see how they gel on the offensive end, who's going to be your primary, who's going to be your secondary scorers? Is Jacob Patrick really that sharp shooter that we think he is and what is going to be his level of opportunity and can he stay on the floor? I think those are most of the questions we're going to be asking offensively. But for the moment, even though there's a lot of unknown, even though there's going to be a volatility in terms of how they could potentially shake out, here's what we can at least rest on. Their Achilles heel last year was that they could not get enough stops. It looks as if that's going to not be the case this year. It looks like at least this upcoming year, we're going to be able to look at this team and say, all right, at least we think you'll be able to play some defense. And I've said this before and I'll say it again because sometimes we have new viewers, but if they get a little bit worse offensively to get better defensively, I will make that exchange. I will sacrifice a few more buckets if we can get a few more stops next year. I think that puts SMU in a much better situation than they were in the 2025-26 season. All right, that'll do it for Locked On SMU here today on a Friday. Appreciate you guys hanging with us for another week. Make sure you check out the Every Day or Club as well. Get your ad-free shows plus members only Discord access and more at the link in the show notes or lockedonsmu.supercast.com to learn more. For those of you here watching on YouTube, we'll send you over to our 24-7 national Locked On Podcast Network YouTube channel on audio. Make sure you make your second listen of the day Locked On College Basketball. See you guys on Monday. Take it easy. I'm Grayson Singleton. Have a good week. Show notes: SMU Mustangs quarterback Kevin Jennings is left off On3’s Top 100 list for the 2026 college football season—does he still have more to prove to cement his status among elite QBs? Grayson Singleton breaks down why Jennings’ turnover rate and stiff competition at the position may have cost him national recognition, and highlights what the Mustangs signal-caller needs to show this year with NFL draft aspirations on the line. Offensive tackle PJ Williams earns his due, landing at No. 76 on the list and emerging as a franchise anchor for SMU’s offensive line. Can Williams boost the Mustangs' playoff hopes and protect Jennings’ blind side as SMU gears up for a challenging ACC schedule? Plus, uncertainty surrounds SMU basketball as the program assembles a new roster under coach Andy Enfield, making this an unknown campaign with revamped defense but plenty of open questions on offense. Everydayer Club If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. 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