Florida State gets its ACC schedule started under the lights on Labor Day, and the opener is a test that carries past the first week of the 2026 college football season. SMU visits Doak Campbell Stadium on Monday night with kickoff set for 7:30 p.m., and will televise and stream the game.
The matchup has the kind of immediate pull that sends people searching for SMU football: a ranked road team, a home underdog, and a rematch of a game that was never close in 2024. Florida State enters at 1-0 and 0-0 in the ACC after a 34-17 win over New Mexico State, a game it trailed 17-10 in the third quarter before pulling away late. SMU arrives at 0-0 overall and 0-0 in the conference, ranked No. 19 in the preseason.
This is only the second meeting between the programs, and the first one was all SMU. Kevin Jennings completed 16 of 23 passes for 254 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions in the 42-16 win in Dallas, and SMU piled up 458 yards that day. Jennings will start again, this time after recovering from an injured index finger on his throwing hand and missing two weeks of fall camp because of a locker room incident.
Rhett Lashlee has kept SMU moving in his fifth year as coach, with a 38-16 record at the school and a 14-2 conference mark through SMU’s first two seasons in the ACC. The Mustangs were perfect in 2024, going 8-0 in the league and reaching the College Football Playoff as the 11th seed, then slipped to 6-2 in 2025 in a season that may have looked even better with a little more finish. SMU lost by one point to Wake Forest and then fell to California with 43 seconds remaining, two defeats that left a narrow margin between a strong year and an undefeated one. It also beat 10th-ranked Miami, a result that showed how high the ceiling still is.
The roster now looks different, and that matters against a Florida State team trying to make an early statement at home. SMU is replacing its top two running backs, four of its top receivers and two offensive linemen, though PJ Williams, Joshua Bates and Addison Nichols return up front. Williams was named Second Team All-ACC at left tackle, while Bates landed on the All-ACC preseason team and the Outland Trophy Watchlist, and he is also on the Rimington Trophy Watchlist. The defense brings back all three starting linebackers, led by Alexander Kilgore, which gives Lashlee some continuity on a unit that will be asked to steady the opener.
That is the sharp edge in this game: SMU brings back the quarterback who carved up Florida State once already, but it also arrives with enough turnover to make a ranked road opener feel more volatile than the preseason line suggests. Florida State’s chance is not just to start 2-0. It is to prove that the gap from one season to the next is narrower than the first meeting made it look.
