By: Steve Moore
The one phrase no college football fan ever wants to hear, the voice of death. “The
university will be prohibited from participating in any football game or scrimmage with outside
competition in 1987. Under the legislation, the program will be considered to be terminated.” On
February 25th, 1987, NCAA Director of Enforcement David Berst announced the execution of
the SMU Mustangs football program.
If you could ask any of the people involved in the making
of this decision what the long term repercussions of SMU receiving the Death Penalty might be,
I don’t think a single person would be able to give you an accurate answer. Today, SMU remains
the only NCAA Division one football program to ever receive the Death Penalty under the
Repeat Violator Rule in the NCAA bylaws.
The university also self-imposed a Death Penalty forthe 1988 season, drastically increasing the long term damage to not only the SMU football program and the University, but also to the city of Dallas as well. In the time between that fateful day in 1987 and 2009, SMU football would post only one winning season, going 6-5 under Mike
Cavan in 1997.
The Mustangs also went 6-6 in 2006 under coach Phil Bennett, but wouldn’t
finish with a true winning record until 2009, where the Mustangs would go 8-5 under coach June
Jones, culminating in a 45-10 beatdown of Nevada in the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl, exercising the
demons of the last two plus decades against a hapless Wolfpack squad. You would think an
SMU fan would look very fondly upon that 2009 season, and many of them did. But for some, it
was only the beginning.
When SMU was given the Death Penalty, SMU football wasn’t the only casualty.
Arkansas would be chased out by Texas and A&M, leaving to join the SEC, having always felt
like an outsider in the SWC. The Southwest Conference would later fold, being partially
absorbed by the Big 8 to form the new Big 12 Conference, leaving SMU, Rice, TCU, and
Houston to scramble and find a new home.
Houston would join Conference USA, while SMU,
Rice, and TCU would all join the WAC. It’s not that far of a reach to look at the modern
landscape of college football and point to this exact event as one of the reasons college football
is in such a chaotic state.
If SMU never gets the Death Penalty, they probably go on to win a
couple more national championships, making the Southwest Conference much less of a
top-heavy league primarily anchored by Texas and A&M, and there’s a very good chance
Arkansas never leaves for the SEC.
In fact, there’s a very real possibility the SEC as we know it
today simply doesn’t exist, as the Southwest Conference likely absorbs most if not all of the Big
8, becoming the first college football ‘Super Conference’ at 16 teams. SMU remaining as an
annual contender would have stabilized not just the SWC, but college football at large.
In fact, we might still have 6 or 7 AQ conferences today if the SWC was still around. But the damage
done by the Death Penalty was never limited to the football field alone. One of the lasting
images from Pony Excess is that of former SMU trainer Cash Birdwell, who is asked if he saw
the Death Penalty coming. He simply says “No, I did not.” The look on his face was that of a
man who had just lost everything he loves.
The long-term and wide-ranging impact of the Death Penalty on SMU cannot be
understated. Billions of dollars worth of lost revenue for SMU and the city of Dallas, hundreds of
thousands of lives changed, and the course of college football history itself permanently altered.
Which brings me to my next question for Mr. Matula: does the NCAA owe SMU an apology?
“Yes! Yes, they do, but is it worth worrying about if we’re going to get it? We’re back where we are supposed to be. We have opportunities to win national championships again, we have a committed alumni base, we have a great on-campus stadium that was finally full and loud this
year.
It’s been incredible, I love seeing clips from this season and the crowd makes it feel like a
big time football game again.” Thaddeus isn’t alone in this line of thinking. If you talk to just
about any SMU fan, they will tell you the same thing. This isn’t a resurrection, it’s a return to the
way things always should have been.
Many would say SMU got what they deserved, but if you look beyond just the surface
level, that may not actually be true. Let’s take a look at the data. As of 2019, 123 teams in the
FBS have received bowl bans, amounting to 44 different universities that have been punished
for violations in football.
Of those 44 schools, only 6 are not currently in a power conference,
while 2 of those 6 no longer sponsor football. Seems like everyone gets punished equally right?
Not exactly. While this data only covers teams that have received bowl bans, it does not cover
teams that received scholarship limits and other sanctions, such as recruiting limitations, at the
hands of the NCAA.
It’s also safe to say that having the SEC commissioner be the head of the
NCAA infractions committee is a massive conflict of interest, considering that over the last 25
years, the majority of the pay for play scandals came from that conference. Anybody want a
cheeseburger? Regardless of what any of the data tells us, one thing is certain; it is abundantly
clear that the NCAA agrees.
Since 1987, no other FBS football program has received the death
penalty, despite multiple schools making very strong cases for it. But at SMU, nobody really
seems to be looking at the past anymore, it’s all eyes forward to the future of Mustang football.
That future, for now, is in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
On July 1st, 2024, the SMU Mustangs would officially join the ACC, the Mustangs first
return to a power conference since the Southwest Conference disbanded in 1996. SMU would
forgo a decade of conference revenue to join the ACC, bolstered by over $200 million dollars in
private funding secured by SMU and its boosters. What happened next is nothing short of a
Disney movie script. SMU would finish the 2024 regular season at 11-1, and would fall just short
of victory in Charlotte in the ACC championship game.
The Cinderella story ended in Happy Valley when the Mustangs came up against Penn State in the first round of the College Football Payoffs. Penn State rolled to a 31-10 win to advance in the CFP Playoffs ending the season for SMU.
Part two of the story will post tomorrow.
Despite the loss to Penn State, SMU is back in the Saddle again.
