Preston Stone sits on the upper deck of Gerald J. Ford Stadium, watching construction workers put the finishing touches on a massive end zone complex representing SMU’s re-entry into major college football. The longer he fixates on the jumbotron that’ll soon show his touchdown passes, the more he remembers the grassy hill it replaced, the one he and his brothers played imaginary football games on during SMU’s real ones.

“There have been a lot of things in my life that have brought me to this season and this level of play,” Stone says. “I’ve watched SMU my whole life. I was going to games when that was still a grass hill over there. To be able to play quarterback for this team as we’re stepping into this ACC schedule with a chance to play in the College Football Playoff this year means the absolute world to me, and it’s not something I take for granted.”

Stone has an air of gratitude that gives him peace before what some call SMU’s biggest season since the 1980s. His quarterback coach, D’Eriq King, reminds him every day that he’s a grown man playing a kid’s game. At the ripe age of 22, Stone has wrestled with his football mortality after two consecutive season-ending injuries. Those trials have granted him a new perspective. They also opened the door for another quarterback.

After Stone broke his leg against Navy, Kevin Jennings led SMU to an American Athletic Conference Championship victory against Tulane in his first career start. While Stone rehabbed in spring practice, Jennings took every rep with the No. 1 offense. The legendary John Madden once said that if you have two quarterbacks, you actually have none. But SMU’s done everything in pairs this offseason. Stone and Jennings both attended ACC Media Days. They both took first-team reps this fall camp. They’re both captains.

Offensive coordinator Casey Woods said Wednesday that the coaching staff was still undecided on which quarterback would take the first snap against Nevada in Week Zero. But SMU has no quarterback controversy; they just have two proven winners they feel confident in. 

And recent history says they’ll need both. Of the 13 FBS teams in Texas last season, only Texas State and Houston started the same quarterback every game.

“We had to have both of those guys to win a conference championship last year,” head coach Rhett Lashlee said. “There’s no question in my mind for us to be successful, we got to have both of them this year.”

SMU’s viewpoint is that if competition is a core tenet of the program, they can’t warden off one position group as safe. In this regard, the quarterback is no different from the left guard or slot wide receiver. Except fans and media have built up the quarterback as the golden arm on which a team’s hopes and dreams rest. This position attracts an alpha dog, and now they have to check their ego at the door.

“I think a lot of times quarterbacks can kind of fall into the trap of thinking you’re the most important position on the field,” Stone said. “In some ways, you are. But there’s ten other guys out there with you. It’s not just me and Kevin going out on the field competing every day. Every single other guy at every position is competing to be on the field.”

But Stone and Jennings are fighting a zero-sum game, unlike other positions which can rotate within drives. They cannot co-exist on the field simultaneously, creating a predicament when both have earned the right to play. Stone had a 17:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio in the seven games before the injury. Jennings won a conference championship in hostile territory.

And yet, both Stone and Jennings insist they are great friends. Jennings said Stone walked him through each coverage he could see before the conference championship. Stone enjoys playing with Jennings’s three-month-old mini Goldendoodle, Fendi.

“If you have a healthy quarterback room, you’re going to have a healthy team and a good year. And if you have a divisive QB room or things get off the rails, it bleeds into your team,” Lashlee said. “Fortunately for us, we have a very, very healthy quarterback room. It’s really cool to see guys like Preston and Kevin and (redshirt freshman) Keldric (Luster) pull for each other in practice. When a guy makes a big-time throw or play, they’re some of the loudest people going crazy for him.”

The relationship Jennings and Stone have maintained through competition is a testament to their character. It’s also a testament to how football brings people together.

SMU has long chased the designation of Dallas’s college football team. But Dallas, the ninth-largest city in the country, means different things to its 1.3 million residents. Stone’s alma mater, Parish Episcopal, is only 20 miles north of Jennings’s alma mater, South Oak Cliff. They might as well be two different worlds.

Parish Episcopal, where Stone won back-to-back state championships, is a private school in North Dallas with annual tuition over $35,000 for grades 9-12. The median household income in South Dallas is $34,000, where Jennings led South Oak Cliff to the first state championship by a Dallas ISD school since 1959. 

Stone was a high four-star prospect with 44 offers who could’ve played anywhere in the country but chose SMU for his family ties. Jennings was committed to FCS Missouri State until the fourth round of the playoffs his senior year of high school when Lashlee watched him play Lovejoy.

They are two men from Dallas with different backgrounds and journeys, and each of them brought them to this season. That’s more important than whoever takes the first snap.

“That’s what makes football one of the greatest things that we have in this world,” Stone said. “Regardless of where you come from, what you look like, it’s 22 guys as a collective coming to a common goal and chasing something that they love.”