On an overcast afternoon in paradise, Southern Methodist football team's future is looking bright.

In its first bowl game in a quarter century, freshman quarterback Kyle Padron rained fury on Nevada by throwing for a school-record 460 yards in the Mustangs' 45-10 win in yesterday's Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl at Aloha Stadium.

"His best football is ahead of him," said SMU coach June Jones, whose pass-happy offense was very familiar to the Hawai'i portion of the announced turnstile count of 20,217.

In other words, Mustang nation has a lot to look forward to in coming seasons.

Padron, who starred at Texas' Southlake Carroll — which produced New Orleans Saint Chase Daniel via Missouri and Alabama's Greg McElroy, son of the former Hawai'i offensive lineman of the same name — completed 32 of 41 passes including TDs of 17 and 2 yards.

"He comes from a very good program called Southlake Carroll, which does a good job of training their quarterbacks," said quarterbacks coach Dan Morrison, a former UH assistant who followed Jones to SMU.

More important, Padron didn't cough up the ball with a fumble or interception.

"He took care of the football like we told him to," Jones said.

The 6-foot-4, 201-pound Padron was invited to attended an SMU quarterbacks camp, his father, Larry Padron said.

"He did a pretty good job there and caught their attention," Larry Padron said. "I think he felt the ability to play in June Jones' offense and to stay close to home was a great reason for going to SMU."

Larry Padron also praised Morrison.

"They mesh real good," Larry Padron said of his son and Morrison.

Kyle Padron said his choice of SMU was a no-brainer. Like McElroy, he didn't get to start until his senior year because of a backlog of talented quarterbacks.

"Coach Jones and Coach Morrison offered me to play and I committed right away," Kyle Padron said. "It's a quarterback's dream. I don't know what other words to put it in, but (Jones) is a great coach."

And he didn't know he would be needed right away. When sophomore Bo Levi Mitchell went down with an injury Oct. 24 in a 38-15 loss to Houston, Kyle Padron took over, leading the Mustangs to five wins in their last six games. In his first start in a 27-13 win at Tulsa, he passed for 354 yards, which is a school record for debut starting QB.

"It's unfortunate for Bo," Kyle Padron said. "He's a good friend of mine. I feel terrible for him, but it gave me an opportunity and I capitalized on it."

The Mustangs and Kyle Padron wasted little time wreaking havoc on the Wolf Pack by completing his first two passes of the game for 129 yards.

After winning to coin toss and electing to receive, SMU flexed its muscle by going deep with Kyle Padron completing a 71-yard pass to Cole Beasley on the second play from scrimmage to set up running back Shawnbrey McNeal's nine-yard TD run on the next play to put the Mustangs ahead, 7-0, one minute, 31 seconds into the game.

On SMU's next series after Nevada lost the ball on downs at the SMU 39, Kyle Padron completed a 58-yard pass on first down to Emmanuel Sanders to the Nevada 3. That set the stage for McNeal's second TD of the game, a one-yard run that made it 14-0.

Sanders, a senior, who had seven catches for 124 yards, had a nifty 17-yard TD reception in which he juked one would-be tackler and broke the grasp of two other defenders in the final three yards of the play. While his next step might be in the NFL, he has high hopes for the freshman QB and SMU.

"Kyle's going to be a great quarterback for SMU," Sanders said. "He proved that today. In big games, he stepped up. Since Day 1, he doesn't approach the game like a freshman. He always wants to get better. I'd like to see in two years what he does to this program because he's going to take it to higher limits."

NOTES

Kyle Padron was responsible for four SMU bowl-game records. His 460 yards beat the previous high of 281 set by Chuck Hixson in the 1968 Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl. He beat the school record of 450 yards by Mike Romo in 1989, Padron's 31 completions also shattered Hixson's 22. Aldrick Robinson's nine catches for 176 yards broke Jerry Levias' eight for 112. Hixson's tie to Hawai'i is he played in the 1969 Hula Bowl.

Kyle Padron's 460 yards ranks third in Hawai'i Bowl history behind Hawai'i's Colt Brennan's 559 in 2006 and Timmy Chang's 475 in 2003.