SMU already did the hard thing last week beating Houston.

After a brutal loss to Cincinnati on the last weekend of October, bowl hopes looked dire for the Mustangs and head coach Sonny Dykes in his first season in Dallas.

But after a convincingly impressive win last week over the then-No. 17 Cougars, SMU (5-5) was back in the driver seat toward a six-win mark and Saturday afternoon’s 62-50 win over UConn (1-9) makes the road much clearer: Just win one of the last two.

Taking care of business

No one looked at one-win UConn as a strong opponent, but as inconsistent SMU has been this season (Having back-to-back wins only once), a loss was still possible. 

But the Mustangs proved that last week wasn’t a fluke racking up nearly 600 total yards, hitting the gas early in the first half and headed into the locker room with a comfortable 31-10 edge. And, much to the benefit of quarterback Ben Hicks, SMU’s run game made a breakthrough for the second consecutive week gashing the Huskies for 315 yards on the ground. This allowed Hicks to play loose knowing he didn’t have to carry the offense on his own. Hicks hardly had a bad read and had one of his best games of the season going 19-of-29 for 276 and one touchdown.

Over the last two weeks, Ben Hicks has completed 65 percent of his passes for 594 yards and five touchdowns with no interceptions. In fact, since winning the tug-of-war over freshman Will Brown, Hicks is 3-1 as a starter with 10 touchdowns to just two interceptions. 

But let’s get to the bigger reason why SMU’s finally clicking offensively...

Ke’Mon Freeman’s emergence as a reliable option

SMU fans know the story, it’s tough to ask Ben Hicks to do everything offensively and they've seen what happens when the offense is put solely on his shoulders.

The Mustangs’ key to their recent stride has been balancing out Hicks’ arm with an effective run game and there’s a pattern. SMU is 4-1 this season when rushing for over 150 yards and Freeman has led the charge over recently weeks rushing for 112 yards against Houston and 116 yards against UConn with Xavier Jones adding in another 133 yards on the ground. Freeman has been paricularly effective in the second half, having the ability to keep drives alive and salt away the clock.

The duo combined for five touchdowns. Both of Freeman’s came in the first half.

Defense, still not good

It should be prefaced that as bad as UConn has been this season, David Pindell is a very good running quarterback. He’s been the lifeblood of the Huskies’ offense and topped 100 yards rushing five times this season heading into Saturday’s game.

Maybe it was a bit of the defense just falling asleep in the second half while holding a commanding lead but the SMU defense let UConn roll 40 (Fairly easy-looking) second-half points and made Pindell look like the second-coming of Tommie Frazier leading the Huskies to 219 yards on the ground in the second half alone.

It’s the second week in a row that the Mustang defense gave SMU fans a scare in the second half while controlling the first two quarters. Last week, it was at least understandable facing one of the hottest offenses in the state in Houston, but this week? Less so.

Nonetheless, SMU is one win away from bowl eligibility after starting the season 0-3 with winnable games against solid Memphis and Tulsa teams on the horizon.