No. 19 SMU beat Florida State 27-24 on Monday night, September 7, 2026, at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, Florida, when kicker Nick Reed hit a 20-yard field goal with 21 seconds left. The win itself came down to one clutch kick — but the game everyone will remember started with the lights going out.
Key facts
- Final score: No. 19 SMU 27, Florida State 24
- Winning play: Nick Reed’s 20-yard field goal with 21 seconds left
- Where and when: Doak Campbell Stadium, Tallahassee, Florida — Monday, September 7, 2026
- Delay cause: a power outage from an electrical short in the stadium’s main transformer
- Kickoff shift: scheduled for 7:30-7:35 p.m. ET, actual kickoff at 9:15 p.m. ET
- Game ended: about 12:30 a.m. ET on September 8
- Records: SMU improved to 1-0 overall, 1-0 in the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference); Florida State fell to 1-1 overall, 0-1 in the ACC
- Top performer: SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings — 26 of 36 passing for 430 yards, three touchdowns, two interceptions
Power outage delays kickoff
A power outage hit the stadium shortly before the scheduled 7:30-7:35 p.m. ET kickoff, knocking out the lights, the sound system and the press box. Florida State Athletics attributed the failure to an electrical short in the stadium’s main transformer, on the tower serving the west side of the venue. With the building dark, the two teams headed back to their locker rooms rather than wait it out on the field.
SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee and Florida State head coach Mike Norvell met at midfield and agreed that once power was restored, both teams would take a second warmup — Lashlee put it at “about 10” minutes to loosen back up “so nobody gets hurt.” The game actually kicked off at 9:15 p.m. ET.
Lashlee, addressing the wait, told ESPN it wasn’t a big deal for his team: “It’s part of football. Sometimes it rains, sometimes you’ve got lightning delays. It’s part of it… We’ve waited longer than anybody in country to play, another 30 minutes isn’t going to hurt us.” He also said SMU hadn’t practiced without coach-to-player communication in two years — a preview of what was coming.
Outlets differed on exactly how long the pregame delay itself ran, with estimates ranging from about 90 minutes to nearly two hours; no single official figure was released, though the shift in kickoff time — from a scheduled 7:30-7:35 p.m. ET to an actual 9:15 p.m. ET — is clear.
Timeline of the night
- 7:30-7:35 p.m. ET — Kickoff originally scheduled
- Shortly before kickoff — Power outage hits the stadium, knocking out lights, sound system and press box
- Before restart — Lashlee and Norvell agree at midfield to a second, roughly 10-minute warmup once power returns
- 9:15 p.m. ET — Game actually kicks off
- Fourth quarter, 21 seconds left — Reed’s 20-yard field goal puts SMU ahead for good
- About 12:30 a.m. ET, September 8 — Final whistle, roughly five hours after the game’s original scheduled start
How the outage disrupted the game
Because the outage had damaged more than just the lights, the game itself was played under unusual conditions for its early stretch: no coach-to-player headset communication, no sideline tablets, no working public-address announcer and no scoreboard. Officials tracked the game clock by hand rather than off a public display. Instant-replay review stayed limited through the early part of the resumed game — the stadium’s Jumbotron screen itself was still down when the teams retook the field, and only came back online partway through, after which officials used it for some replay looks. No injuries and no evacuation were reported. Fans largely stayed put in the stadium during the wait, using phone flashlights and chants to pass the time.
SMU’s Jennings has a huge night
Despite the chaos, the football was competitive from the start. SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings had the biggest night of anyone on the field, completing 26 of 36 passes for 430 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions, adding 33 yards on the ground and leading the game-winning field-goal drive. His first touchdown pass went to Jalen Cooper for 50 yards in the first quarter. He added a 10-yard score to Randy Pittman Jr., then, in the fourth quarter, broke off a 79-yard touchdown to Yannick Smith — the longest of his three touchdown throws.
Florida State rallies before falling short
Florida State leaned on running back Ousmane Kromah. He capitalized when SMU returner Yamir Knight muffed a punt in the third quarter while SMU led 17-10; Florida State recovered, and eight plays later Kromah punched it in to tie the game at 17-17 — the Seminoles’ most productive stretch of the night. Kromah finished with 22 carries for 116 yards. Quarterback Ashton Daniels, in his first season at Florida State after transfer stops at Auburn and Stanford, went 12 of 23 for 125 yards, throwing a 39-yard touchdown to Samuel Singleton Jr. that tied the score at 24-24 in the fourth quarter, and also scored on an 8-yard run.
Florida State had its chances to pull away. The Seminoles intercepted Jennings twice — one pick each by Ashlynd Barker and Nehemiah Chandler — and also converted Knight’s third-quarter muffed punt into Kromah’s tying score. SMU lost the ball four times in all: the two interceptions, an early fumble, and the muffed punt. But Florida State’s offense stalled on money downs, converting just 2 of 15 third-down chances, and couldn’t turn its takeaways into a win. Reed’s 20-yard field goal — his second make of the night, following an earlier 22-yarder — sealed it with 21 seconds left, and Florida State couldn’t answer. Because of the pregame delay, the final whistle didn’t come until roughly 12:30 a.m. ET on September 8, about five hours after the game was originally supposed to start.
What the win means
The win was SMU’s ACC opener. The Mustangs had entered the season ranked No. 19 in the preseason AP Top 25 — the conference’s second-highest-ranked team behind Miami — and moved to 1-0 overall and 1-0 in the ACC. Florida State fell to 1-1 overall and 0-1 in conference play. CBS Sports had already put Florida State coach Mike Norvell on a “hot seat” watch tied to speculation about his job security before kickoff, and a Yahoo Sports column afterward argued the combination of the outage and the loss only turned up that heat further; no statement or personnel decision from Florida State regarding Norvell has been reported.
Not the only SMU power outage this week
One note for anyone who saw two different SMU power-outage headlines this week: the Doak Campbell Stadium outage that delayed this game is not connected to a separate outage that forced SMU to evacuate dormitories on its Dallas campus. That was a distinct, unrelated failure within SMU’s own campus power system, according to utility provider Oncor — two different outages, at two different SMU-affiliated locations, in the same stretch of days.