{"id":449293,"date":"2026-09-27T12:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T12:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/449293\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T12:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T12:48:11","slug":"bears-fight-no-22-mustangs-to-the-finish-in-dallas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/449293\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears Fight No. 22 Mustangs to the Finish in Dallas"},"content":{"rendered":"

DALLAS \u2013 Visiting Missouri State kept No. 22-ranked SMU within striking distance most of the night before the home-standing Mustangs ultimately prevailed 34-24 here Saturday.
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\nSMU quarterback Kevin Jennings passed for 464 yards and 3 touchdowns to lead his side while pushing the Mustangs (3-1) to 592 total yards.
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\nExcept for a three-minute stretch late in the fourth quarter, the Bears (1-3) stayed within 11 points of their ACC foes the entire game. Skyler Locklear<\/a> completed 15-of-19 passes for 102 yards and a touchdown, while Henry Belin IV<\/a> tallied 69 yards and a TD pass late. Breezy Dubar<\/a> had 76 rushing yards on 7 carries to lead Mo State.
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\nDown 21-10 at the end of the third quarter, the Bears climbed back within 21-18 of the lead early in the final period on a 15-yard strike from Locklear to Isaiah Myers<\/a>. The nine-play, 75-yard scoring march included a key 32-yard strike to Mekhi Miller<\/a> deep into SMU territory to eventually set up one of the night’s most-important scores.
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\nThe Bears forced SMU into its only three-and-out punt on the Mustangs’ next possession but the visitors couldn’t capitalize and punted it back to SMU with 9:00 to go.
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\nJennings went to work and led the Mustangs on back-to-back scoring drives with TD passes to Yamir Knight from 28 yards out and Melin Ohrstrom from 23 to give SMU its largest lead of the game, 34-18, with 4:07 remaining.
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\nThe never-say-die Bears rallied behind Belin for a season-long scoring drive of 13 plays which was capped with an 18-yard TD stroke to Dillon Hipp<\/a> \u2013 the first of his career \u2013 to make it 34-24 with 1:09 to go. MSU’s two-point conversion attempt and subsequent on-side kick both failed, and SMU ran out the clock.
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\nKendrick Raphael led SMU’s ground attack with 97 yards on 23 carries and a touchdown, while receivers Knight (164) and Jalen Cooper (125) each eclipsed 100 yards receiving from Jennings.
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\nThe Bears’ defense was led by Bird Lloyd who matched a career-high for the second week in a row (and third time in four games) with 13 total stops. CUSA’s top tackler has now posted double-figure stops in five of the last seven games. Martavis Blackmon<\/a> (12) and Christian Ford<\/a> (11) also logged double-figure stops for the visitors, while J.J. O’Neal<\/a> was credited with 9.<\/p>\n

SMU came into the game ranked No. 22 in the AP poll and No. 25 in the AFCA poll.

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\nThe first half was eerily similar to last year’s meeting in Springfield with the Bears jumping out to a 10-0 lead in the opening quarter before the Mustangs responded with 14 unanswered points in the second period.

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\nMo State’s early surge also saw the visiting defense turn over the home squad on three consecutive possessions to start the game. The Bears forced SMU to a turnover on downs on its opening possession of the night before a red zone fumble recovery by Blackmon on the next SMU drive.

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\nAfter the Bears took an early 3-0 advantage on a 35-yard field goal by Yousef Obeid<\/a> at the 2:17 mark of the opening stanza, Joel Boamah’s<\/a> 60-yard interception return for a touchdown gave Mo State a 10-0 advantage with 41 seconds remaining.

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\nIt marked Missouri State’s first pick-six since PJ Hall at Ball State in 2024.

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\nThe second period began with SMU finishing off a 78-yard scoring drive on a one-yard rush by Rafael who accounted for 38 ground yards on the 11-play possession.

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\nMissouri State punted on its final two possessions of the opening half, while the Mustangs doinked a 29-yard field goal off the left upright to preserve Missouri State’s 10-7 lead. However, SMU finished off the period with a 19-yard TD pass from Jennings to Theo Melin Ohrstrom with just four seconds left to cap an efficient 87-yard march.

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\nSMU outgained the Bears 379-119 in the opening 30 minutes with Breezy Dubar<\/a> accounting for 68 ground yards on just five carries in that span for Mo State.

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\nThe Bears open Conference USA play next Thursday (Oct. 8) at Western Kentucky before returning to Plaster Stadium on Wednesday, Oct. 14 for a showdown with Kennesaw State at 6:30 p.m. \u00a0

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\nTickets for the Kennesaw State game are available now at MissouriStateBears.com<\/a> or by visiting the Great Southern Bank Arena Box Office, (417) 836-7678, during regular box office hours.

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#GoBears.<\/p>\n

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\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS \u2013 Visiting Missouri State kept No. 22-ranked SMU within striking distance most of the night before the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-449293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}