NEWPORT, R.I. — Chad Morris’ message during his first year at SMU stressed daily improvement and little more. It wasn’t that wins and losses didn’t matter; Morris simply felt that defining success in the standings was a recipe for disaster.

At that point, the Mustangs’ sad-sack roster was headed for a losing season no matter what buttons the former Clemson offensive coordinator pushed — and SMU was pitiful in Morris’ first season, though with enough flashes of production to drum up a sense of intrigue surrounding the program’s potential.

The message didn’t change much a summer ago. The Mustangs continued to define success in nontraditional ways: with daily competitions, by how the team lined up their helmets, even by how they stretched before practice. Last fall saw growth and decline, with an uptick in the win column tempered by a sour home stretch. Sitting at five wins with two games to go, SMU lost at home to South Florida and Navy, giving up 75 points to the latter, to finish outside of bowl eligibility.

But the message has been different since the calendar turned to 2017. Now the Mustangs are talking championship.

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“We haven’t talked about being a championship team until this year. This has been the year we’ve circled,” Morris told USA TODAY Sports at the American Athletic Conference media day.

“This is a breakout year for us. Last year we saw growth. We saw the walls come up. We saw a few sprouts of seeds pop out of the ground. This year we expect to see it really continue to incline and continue to grow.”

Despite being picked to finish fifth in a crowded West Division, SMU is aiming itself not just at a postseason berth — an achievement that seems highly likely — but an outright conference title, a strong statement of belief that speaks to the team’s internal confidence entering Morris’ third season.

It also speaks to the clear sense of progress: SMU has gone from conference punchline — the team opponents scrambled to schedule on homecoming — to pesky challenger to, if things go according to plan, one of the breakout teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

“Seeing where it’s progressed from then to now, it’s ridiculous how far we’ve come,” said SMU running back Braeden West. “Just how much better, stronger, faster guys have gotten. It’s just a huge difference from then to now.”

But this was always part of the plan. Since first arriving on campus, Morris has pointed toward his third year as the Mustangs’ breakout moment. Knowing this past winter he’d need to alter his message to represent this growing confidence, Morris reached out to a few peers — such as Colorado coach Mike MacIntyre and the Dallas Cowboys’ Jason Garrett — to help hone his approach.

This is where we are, Morris said, and here’s what I think we can achieve. How should I frame my message? MacIntyre, Garrett and others responded: Preach confidence but don’t deviate from the culture that helped blaze this path.

“We knew it was going to take time,” said center Evan Brown, “but we’ve been looking forward to this year. It’s time for us to put everything together.”

Unlike in Morris’ first year, for example, the pieces are in place. The Mustangs return nine starters on offense, including one of the nation’s top skill players in senior wide receiver Courtland Sutton. Gashed during the final months of last season, the defense returns five starters but touts vastly increased depth, a reflection on the program’s stout recruiting efforts in the heart of Texas.

The uptick in talent is clear, Morris said. “We’ve got some of the premier talent, offensive talent and defensive talent, in college football. We’ve got a chance to be really special, really good."

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Not that it’ll be easy. There remain more than a few potential roadblocks in the Mustangs’ path: the defense, which must ascend to at least mediocrity to lift this team into the conference title game; the play of sophomore quarterback Ben Hicks, the projected starter after a predictably uneven rookie campaign; and the Mustangs’ ability to defend its home field, a frustrating concern during Morris’ first two seasons.

Few teams are perfect — and fewer still, if any, are perfect on the Group of Five level. One of the takeaways from the program’s steady progression, in fact, can be found in how the Mustangs handle the inevitable storm clouds that arise in any given season.

A setback is coming, Morris said, because every team encounters adversity. “But our program has been built by this culture. We can sleep through the storms because we know we have a strong foundation.”

It’s that foundation that speaks most to the Mustangs’ potential. The offense is in place. Despite little in the way of past results, the defense has embraced the task of meeting the challenge presented by TCU, Arkansas State and the number of high-octane offenses in the American — Houston, Tulsa, Navy and Memphis, to name a few.

Most of all, it’s Year 3 under Chad Morris. It’s been mapped out since the start: SMU first learned how to win; now the Mustangs will go out and do it.

“We still have a lot to prove, obviously,” Morris said. “But that’s OK. Because you have to earn that respect. But we also know we’ve put a lot of work in. We’ve been through the bottom and now we’re climbing up and finally getting our head above water. The fruits of the labor, so to speak.”