Missouri State coach Casey Woods returns to SMU, where he spent four years under Rhett Lashlee, for a matchup loaded with familiarity and emotion.
Casey Woods knows the Hilltop about as well as anyone standing on the opposite sideline Saturday night. The first-year Missouri State head coach returns to Dallas to face No. 22 SMU after spending the previous four seasons as the Mustangs’ offensive coordinator and chief of staff under Rhett Lashlee.
That makes this more than another non-conference game.
Woods helped oversee one of the most successful stretches in modern SMU football, including four straight bowl appearances and a College Football Playoff berth in 2024. He also worked directly with many of the players and coaches he’ll now be trying to beat.
“I don’t have a closer friend in this business than Rhett Lashlee,” Woods said this week. “At the end of the day, this game is not about me.”
That may be true inside the Missouri State locker room, but the reunion angle is impossible to ignore.
Woods and Lashlee go back well beyond SMU. They previously worked together at Auburn under Gus Malzahn, where both were part of the Tigers’ 2010 national championship staff.
Their professional relationship later became a close friendship, and Lashlee has been openly complimentary of Woods since he took the Missouri State job.
“Casey is going to be a fantastic head coach at Missouri State,” Lashlee said during ACC media days. “I can’t believe that we have to play him Week 4.”
There’s familiarity beyond Woods, too.
Several former SMU staffers followed him to Springfield, giving Missouri State an unusual level of insight into how the Mustangs operate.
That doesn’t erase the talent gap, but it could help the Bears anticipate personnel tendencies, terminology and situational habits.
SMU still enters as the heavy favorite.
Kevin Jennings has thrown for 989 yards and nine touchdowns through three games, while Kendrick Raphael has rushed for 275 yards and four scores.
Missouri State counters with quarterback Skyler Locklear and a team still finding its footing at 1-2.
Woods knows what SMU does. SMU knows how Woods thinks.
That familiarity may not decide the game, but it gives Saturday night far more intrigue than the point spread suggests.
