DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Ahmaad Moses returned an interception 95 yards for a touchdown and middle linebacker Alexander Kilgore had a much shorter and stranger pick-6 as 16th-ranked SMU opened the season with a 42-13 win over East Texas A&M on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs led for good after Kevin Jennings’ 63-yard TD pass to Romello Brinson on the third play less than a minute into the game. Jennings completed 22 of 30 passes for 260 yards and two TDs, and ran 7 yards for a score. Brinson had seven catches for 121 yards.<\/p>\n
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Moses’ big play<\/a> made it 28-3 after Football Championship Subdivision East Texas A&M got to the SMU 8 on the first drive after halftime. He stepped in front of a pass by Eric Rodriguez and sprinted the length of the field untouched.<\/p>\n Kilgore, one of the team’s captains, got hurt on his 10-yard TD return<\/a> in the first quarter. He was limping when he got up and was on the sideline after halftime on crutches and with a protective boot on his left foot.<\/p>\n Will Madonna threw that interception, which first went off 6-foot-4 defensive end Cameron Robertson while he reached over an offensive lineman. The ball then ricocheted off of Kilgore’s foot without hitting the ground. He grabbed it and was tripped up by Madonna as he crossed the goal line.<\/p>\n SMU lost top returning receiver Jordan Hudson<\/a> to an apparent shoulder injury on a 7-yard catch on the first play of the game.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Takeaway<\/p>\n East Texas A&M: The team formerly known as A&M-Commerce, with its campus only about 70 miles from SMU, played its first game as a full-fledged Division I FCS member. The Lions were the NCAA Division II national champion in 2017.<\/p>\n SMU: Along with two pick-6s in a game for the first time since 2016, SMU’s defense forced a fumble after the Lions drove to the 4. … The Mustangs made their ACC debut last year going undefeated in conference play, but finished the season with back-to-back losses, to Clemson in the conference championship game and Penn State in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal game.<\/p>\n Up next<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n SMU stays home next Saturday to play former SWC rival Baylor (0-1) for the first time since 2016. East Texas A&M plays at Florida State (1-0), which is coming off a 31-17 upset of No. 9 Alabama<\/a>.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a>. AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Ahmaad Moses returned an interception 95 yards for a touchdown and middle linebacker Alexander Kilgore…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[5183,78405,19121,5695,71149,11404,399,78407,5689,13847,29110,398,396,397,8392,78406,78404,99,7084,5692],"class_list":["post-122287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-alabama","tag-alexander-kilgore","tag-baylor","tag-clemson","tag-east-texas","tag-florida-state","tag-football","tag-jordan-hudson","tag-kevin-jennings","tag-madonna","tag-middle-linebacker","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-penn-state","tag-romello-brinson","tag-smu","tag-sports","tag-texas-am","tag-the-mustangs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}