Well, hello, darlings. Tatum Delacroix-Price here, coming to you from the back of my boutique in University Park, steamer in one hand, red-and-blue scarf in the other. I treat every SMU tailgate on the Boulevard like it's fashion week, I treat every game like a runway show, and I grade every performance. I am never wrong. I'm occasionally early, but never wrong.
Last Saturday's look? Classic, tailored and a little understated. Not every outfit needs sequins, sugar. Sometimes a crisp navy blazer wins the room.
Pony up or sit down.
Part 1: The Little Black Dress of Football Games
No. 24 SMU beat Virginia 23-13 at Gerald J. Ford Stadium. We're 5-1 and 3-1 in the ACC. It wasn't flashy. It was the little black dress of football games: simple, elegant and it always works.
Kevin Jennings went 23 of 36 for 246 yards and two touchdowns, with no interceptions. He hit Randy Pittman Jr. for a 6-yard touchdown on fourth-and-1 in the second quarter, after Yannick Smith's 59-yard catch set it up. Then, early in the fourth quarter, Jennings found Jalen Hale on a 37-yard catch-and-run score. Kendrick Raphael ran 22 times for 124 yards. We went 4 for 5 on fourth down. And before that touchdown, Jennings got hit as he threw on fourth-and-3, and Yamir Knight still caught the fluttering ball past the marker. Darling, that's what we call effortless.
And can we please talk about Brendan Baird? AP says he's a former SMU soccer player, and he'd missed his only previous kick. On Saturday he made field goals of 23, 45 and 26 yards. The 45-yarder came on an untimed down at the end of the first half and gave us a 13-10 lead. A soccer player walking onto the football field and draining three kicks? That's a wardrobe change worthy of an award show.
The defense was couture. Virginia came in with the ACC's top pass defense and left with 258 yards. That's the third straight game Virginia has been held under 300. We didn't turn it over once. And the weather finally cooperated: 57 degrees at kickoff, per AP. Sweater weather, darling. My most beloved season.
AP also noted SMU is now 10-0 at home in ACC games since rejoining a power conference in 2024, and 17-3 in the ACC overall. Ten and oh at home. In my business, that's called a sold-out collection.
Part 2: The Bears Walk Our Runway
Saturday, noon Eastern, 11 a.m. here, on The CW. Cal (3-4) at No. 23 SMU (5-1) at Gerald J. Ford Stadium. It's the last of four straight home games for us, and the final fitting of the season.
Cal's Look, Graded
Let me be sweet first, because I'm a Southern host. Cal can throw it. Its passing game ranks 15th in FBS, and Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele went 15 of 18 last week. Chase Hendricks has 47 catches. And yes, Cal beat us 38-35 in Berkeley last season. I remember. I wore black for a week.
Now, sugar, the critique.
Last Saturday, Wake Forest beat Cal 41-7 in Berkeley. Wake scored touchdowns on five of six first-half possessions and led 34-0 at halftime. AP says it was Cal's biggest halftime deficit since 2013. Wake opened with a 99-yard drive. Darling, I've seen runway models take longer to walk 99 feet.
Cal runs for 90.3 yards a game. That's 137th in FBS. Its defense gives up 181.4 rushing yards a game, 111th, and 27.7 points a game, 104th. Cal also averages 81.4 penalty yards a game, 131st. And earlier this season, Cal lost at UNLV, 39-31. Grade? Incomplete, sweetheart. Come back after alterations.
SMU's Look, Graded
Jennings completes 72.9% of his passes and has 16 touchdowns. Our passing offense ranks fifth in FBS. Our pass defense allows 164.8 yards a game, 11th. Raphael has 542 rushing yards and six touchdowns, and Knight has 35 catches. Marques White has 4.5 sacks, and Alexander Kilgore leads us with 35 tackles.
Against a run defense ranked 111th, Raphael should be strutting.
Here's my styling plan, darlings. Start with Raphael, the statement piece. Once Cal's defense commits to him, accessorize with Jennings on play-action to Knight and Smith. Keep the pass defense buttoned up against Sagapolutele and Hendricks, because Cal's offense lives through the air. And whatever you do, keep Baird's confidence high. A soccer player who just made three kicks in his first big night is the hottest new designer in town.
Honest Fitting Notes
I'm honest with every client. We're 114th in penalty yards and 95th in red zone offense, and our coach said himself that we didn't finish enough drives against Virginia. We lost at Louisville in September. And until last week, our kicking game was 3 of 7 on field goals. A good tailor fixes the hem before the show. Let's fix ours.
The series: SMU leads 2-1, according to CollegeFootballData, but Cal won the last one. Time for a return engagement, darling.
Postcards: University Park vs. Berkeley
University Park and Dallas. SMU was founded in 1911 and sits in University Park, a charming town of 25,278 that, with Highland Park, makes up the Park Cities. Dallas surrounds us, and Dallas is the ninth-most populous city in America, the anchor of an 8.5-million-person metro. Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit at Texas Instruments in 1958, and TI is headquartered in Dallas. So every phone in every pocket owes a little thank-you note to our city. And the State Fair of Texas, held at Fair Park and run nearly every year since 1886, claims more than 2 million visitors a year, with Big Tex, a 55-foot cowboy, presiding since 1952.
Our mascot, Peruna, is a black Shetland pony who's been at every SMU home game but one since 1932. SMU won a national championship in 1935. And Doak Walker is the only Mustang to win the Heisman Trophy. Gerald J. Ford Stadium opened on Sept. 2, 2000. Polished, modern and always camera-ready.
Berkeley. Berkeley is lovely, and it's very smart. I'll give it that. But I've been reading. California Memorial Stadium was built in 1923 directly on top of the Hayward Fault. So they built the stadium in two halves. Darling, that's not a stadium. That's a two-piece outfit held together by geology.
Then there's the name. Berkeley is named after George Berkeley, a philosopher who argued that familiar objects like tables and chairs can't exist without being perceived. That actually explains a lot. Against Wake Forest, Cal's first half simply wasn't perceived. Therefore it didn't exist. Philosophy, sugar.
And the hill above Cal's stadium is nicknamed Tightwad Hill, where fans have long gathered to watch for free. I run a boutique. I can't even look at a word like that.
The Final Look
Here's my grade for Saturday. SMU has a top-five passing game, a top-15 pass defense, a powerful running back and a perfect home record in ACC play. Cal has a strong arm and a lot of alterations to make. If we finish drives and keep the flags off the field, the Mustangs walk off the runway at 6-1 and looking fabulous.
Pony up or sit down, sugar.
My call: SMU Mustangs 35, California Golden Bears 18.