Most of the buildings and monuments you see in the sports complexes of college football programs bear the names of former coaches and players. However, for the first time ever, a college football program now has an active player with an area on campus named after him. The building is a recovery center in the program’s football complex.

The SMU Mustangs have decided to name the recovery center in the program’s new football complex after quarterback Kevin Jennings. The announcement of the Kevin Jennings Recovery Center came just after the Mustangs launched their “K7NG OF DALLAS” campaign, referencing the campus’s location, Jennings’ place of birth, and his jersey number.

“It’s pretty unprecedented to have a facility or a space named after a current player,” SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee said in a press conference held on Wednesday, July 15. “I don’t know of a time it’s ever happened before, but we’re gonna have the Kevin Jennings Recovery Center here in the Weber Facility. We’re gonna get started on it now while he’s still here, because when you’re thinking about Kevin, in this era, it’s all about what can players get? Kevin’s all about, what can I do for other people? He’s been that way since he showed up; he’s that way on campus, he’s that way in his city, and I think he wanted to do something that he can take advantage of for a few months.

“But when you start looking at a legacy that’s gonna be left, every player that comes through SMU is gonna see Kevin’s name up there and be reminded of the impact he had, but also what his accomplishments allowed us to do to help make their experience better.”

The Mustangs are alsi launching a Heisman Trophy campaign for their senior quarterback, and they are really vocal about it. The program finds its justification in his 19-7 record as QB1 and his 7,709 passing yards and 55 touchdowns, which are likely a few months removed from the program’s records of 9,081 passing yards and 72 touchdowns.

In the 2025 season, he threw for 3,641 yards and 26 touchdowns, while completing 300 of 454 passes. With him, the program is only behind Miami on the list of ACC teams with the most wins since it joined the conference.

Jennings expressed his excitement about the idea, calling it a “blessing.” But winning the Heisman in 2026 will demand far more than a facility bearing his name. It would require the Mustangs to improve their overall record while Jennings perfects the aspects of his game that will keep him from becoming the fifth quarterback in six years to win the Heisman Trophy.

Kevin Jennings’ Heisman reality

Jennings started 26 games over the last three seasons and is aiming for the Heisman in 2026. But outside Dallas, he has only a 1.2% chance of winning the award, according to FanDuel.

The likes of Texas Longhorns’ Arch Manning (+800), Notre Dame’s CJ Carr (+700), and Miami’s Darian Mensah (+1,100) have better odds of winning the award than Jennings, who is +8,000. In 2025, he was eighth in passing yards and 17th in passing touchdowns, which seems fair, but he is heavily let down by his interception ratio. His 13 interceptions were the third-most in the FBS.

Jennings’ status at SMU is undisputed. But if he wants to maintain the same reputation in all of college football and win the Heisman Trophy, he must improve his game.