College Station, Texas ? While almost everyone else has been worried about Texas A&M’s conference affiliation, the Aggies have been concentrating on SMU.

On Sunday night that focus was apparent as Cyrus Gray and Christine Michael ran for two touchdowns apiece, and Ryan Tannehill threw for two more scores to help No. 8 Texas A&M beat SMU, 46-14.

The Aggies were anxious to get on the field and bring the focus back to football instead of the school’s decision to leave the Big 12, likely for the Southeastern Conference. They got things going early, intercepting quarterback Kyle Padron’s passes on SMU’s first two possessions to take a 14-0 lead.

“We don’t really pay attention to any of that stuff,” receiver Ryan Swope said about the conference realignment discussion. “We just come out and play football for this university. We let the other people take care of that. I don’t think it really affected us at all.”

Added coach Mike Sherman: “We focused pretty hard on SMU. They warranted our undivided attention. That’s all we talked about.”

SMU coach June Jones replaced Padron with backup J.J. McDermott after the early miscues and he helped the Mustangs cut it to 20-14 in the second quarter.

But the Mustangs couldn’t do much offensively after that and the Aggies scored 26 straight points the rest of the way to secure the win.

“I just had a feeling on two of the errors that he was not himself,” Jones said about Padron. “I thought I would settle him down and then get him back in the game, but McDermott was the way to go.”

Gray finished with 132 yards rushing. Michael, in his first game since breaking his leg last October, added 85. Tannehill was 21 of 26 for 246 yards. Ryan Swope led Texas A&M’s receivers with eight receptions for 109 yards and a score and Jeff Fuller added six catches for 52 yards.

Texas A&M had eight sacks, led by a career-high three by Tony Jerod-Eddie, the Aggies most since 2002.

Jerod-Eddie was pleased to have such a big game with former A&M star Von Miller, who led the FBS with 17 sacks in 2009 and was the second overall pick in this year’s draft, at Sunday’s game.