With Cal moving to the Atlantic Coast Conference, or ACC, the Bears are set to face 16 brand-new programs. This series will aim to familiarize Cal fans with their new, upcoming opponents, beginning with Southern Methodist University, or SMU, which also joins the ACC with Cal and Stanford. SMU has also been designated as a “protected rivalry,” which guarantees a matchup between the Bears and the Mustangs every season with alternating locations.
SMU is located in Dallas, Texas and was founded in 1911, with the football program starting four years later. The program found early success in the 1920s under the guidance of head coach Ray Morrison, which included an undefeated season in 1923. SMU’s breakthrough season came in 1935, when it went 12-1, winning the Southwest Conference, or SWC, championship and appearing in the Rose Bowl versus Stanford, which ended in a 7-0 loss.
The next major era for SMU came in 1945 with Doak Walker, the eventual Heisman Trophy winner, College Football Hall of Fame inductee and Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee. Walker was famed for his versatility, playing running back, punter, kicker and returner.
Walker played his freshman season in 1945 before missing his sophomore season in 1946 due to enlisting in the Army. Walker wreaked havoc upon his return to the college football world in his junior season and won the Heisman Trophy in 1948.
Across the 1947-48 seasons, SMU won consecutive SWC championships. The Mustangs tied with Penn State in the 1948 Cotton Bowl and beat Oregon in the 1949 Cotton Bowl. In the period after the end of World War II, SMU was an exciting team to watch for fans across the nation with its unpredictable and pass-oriented offense.
After struggling for relevance in the early 1970s, SMU was brought back to the spotlight in the early 1980s, kickstarted by the “Pony Express” tandem of future NFL running backs Eric Dickerson and Craig James. The Mustangs posted a 49-9-1 record from 1980 to 1984.
Despite many different periods of success, SMU is known best for the infamous “death penalty” it received in the late 1980s. The death penalty, in simple terms, is a complete ban of a school from competing in a sport for at least one season and is the harshest possible punishment handed out by the NCAA.
SMU was the first and only football program to receive the death penalty, which derailed the success of the school for decades. SMU football was terminated for the 1987 and 1988 seasons for making $61,000 in booster payments to pay athletes from 1985-86. It was later revealed that a “slush fund” — a fund to pay athletes illegally — had been established since the mid-1970s.
This happened in a time far before the “name, image and likeness” era, where paying and compensating players in any amount was considered a major violation. Besides the cancellation of games, SMU lost 55 scholarships over four years, was banned from bowl games and live television until 1989, faced heavy restrictions on recruiting and was only allowed to hire five out of nine possible assistant coaches.
The program then sunk back into irrelevance in the decades after the death penalty, bringing SMU back to where it was just a couple of decades prior.
The SWC broke up in 1995 due to a multitude of scandals, highlighted by the death penalty, alongside declining television revenue and minimal national success for all teams. SMU was left in the dust by other SWC schools that ended up joining more prestigious conferences, such as the Southeastern Conference and the eventual Big 12 Conference.
SMU found itself jumping around conferences over the next few decades: Western Athletic Conference from 1996-2004, Conference USA from 2005-12 and the American Athletic Conference from 2013-23 before finally joining the ACC for the foreseeable future.
The return to a top-flight conference was marked by gradual improvements in the 2010s and 2020s. After taking over two years ago, head coach Rhett Lashlee has guided the Mustangs to 7-6 and 11-3 records, respectively, with one American Conference title and two consecutive bowl game appearances.
SMU has been looking to reestablish itself at the top of the college football scene and finally seems to be lifting itself out and above the death penalty it received back in the 1980s. Although perhaps not a perennial powerhouse like some of Cal’s old opponents, SMU will remain a threat and an exciting game to look forward to for years.
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