DALLAS — For months, SMU has eagerly awaited news of its conference future.
Since the Pac-12 began to seriously consider expansion and commissioner George Kliavkoff visited the campus in February, fans and alumni have brimmed with anticipation of an invitation. The stakes are clear. Joining the Pac-12, even after USC and UCLA’s jump to the Big Ten, would be a big step up for SMU, both in competition and revenue.
Advertisement
A resolution on the school’s future doesn’t seem imminent, with reports emerging last week that the Pac-12’s media rights negotiations could stretch into the summer. Such a deal would likely need to precede an invitation, if SMU gets one.
As the Pac-12 saga drags on, here’s the good news for the Ponies: In the coming 12-team College Football Playoff era, SMU football is in a win-win situation.
“We’ve got our program to the point where we feel like we can compete with anyone,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said. “We played a team that was in the national championship game last year (TCU) within a touchdown. … We feel like our program belongs on the biggest stage, whatever that is.”
The Mustangs may prefer that stage be in the Pac-12. But if not, the program is still well-positioned for success in the American Athletic Conference when the next iteration of the Playoff begins in the 2024 season thanks to the format’s increased access.
SMU football has taken key steps forward. Concrete is pouring into the south end of Ford Stadium, where the program’s new $100 million end zone facility is under construction. The 192,500-square foot building, which includes new locker rooms, meeting rooms, coaches’ offices, a weight room and premium seating, was spearheaded by SMU alumnus and former player Garry Weber’s $50 million donation last year. It will open before the 2024 season.
Donors have been aggressive in the name, image and likeness space. Last August, the Boulevard Collective pledged to pay SMU football and men’s basketball players $36,000 each. The group is one of two SMU collectives, along with Pony Sports DTX.
On the field, SMU just completed its fourth consecutive season with a winning record, the longest such streak the program has had since the 1980s, before the infamous NCAA-instituted “Death Penalty” in 1987.
Advertisement
The Ponies have stepped up recruiting in recent years, too. Their Dallas-heavy branding strategy and on-field success in the Sonny Dykes era caught the attention of local prospects, a trend that has sustained since Lashlee took over in December 2021. Their efficient use of the transfer portal, first under Dykes and now under Lashlee, has helped build SMU into a consistent competitor. Their growing recruiting staff, whose size rivals most of its in-state Power 5 counterparts, is key to those efforts.
In the 2023 recruiting cycle, SMU’s overall class — combining high school signees and transfers — ranked 47th nationally, according to 247Sports, higher than any other Group of 5 program and above several Power 5s. Lashlee’s transfer haul from the winter portal window, which includes 17 players, ranked ninth. Thirteen of those transfers came from Power 5 programs. Half of SMU’s high school signing class hails from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, as the program continues to emphasize local recruiting.
SMU checks a lot of the boxes needed for a successful football program.
“We’re the only (FBS) school in Dallas,” Lashlee said. “It’s a great city. We have a great school. We got a great recruiting base. People are wanting to come here now because we’re winning, the brand is good.”
Of course, Pac-12 membership has its advantages. The media rights revenue SMU receives annually would more than quadruple if the Pac-12 were to cut a deal that is relatively close to the Big 12’s new contract ($31.7 million per school). That windfall is meaningful, not just to football, but across the athletic department.
Fans would be more excited to see the Mustangs compete against the likes of Oregon, Washington, Utah and Arizona State than their current AAC mates, even if the Pac-12 is an awkward geographic fit. The travel challenges it would bring, particularly to non-football sports, aren’t insignificant.
Advertisement
But if conference realignment dominoes don’t fall in SMU’s favor, there’s still a path to elevated football relevance. The 12-team Playoff opens up an opportunity for a conference champion outside the power conferences because the six highest-ranked champions will qualify each year.
In the Playoff era, seven of the nine Group of 5 conference representatives in the New Year’s Six bowls came from the AAC. Cincinnati and UCF each made it twice, with the Bearcats making the Playoff in 2021, and Houston, Memphis and Tulane have also made New Year’s Six bowls.
Three of those teams (Cincinnati, Houston, UCF) are off to the Big 12 this summer, creating a prime opportunity for SMU to capitalize.
“I feel like we’re in a great conference,” Lashlee said of the American. “Tulane won our league last year and went to the Cotton Bowl. Well, (in a 12-team Playoff) that would have been, ‘Oh, you’re in the Playoff.’ That opportunity is there if you can win our league, and I don’t think that’s going to change.”
Six new teams — Charlotte, FAU, North Texas, Rice, UAB and UTSA — join the AAC this summer. Three of them have combined to win the last six Conference USA championships, so the league should remain competitive. But the new version of the American gives SMU a better chance to do something it hasn’t since 1984: win a conference title.
“The bottom line is we have to break through and win a championship,” Lashlee said. “We haven’t done that in almost 40 years. But we know that it’s capable here, and I think we’re close.”
After going a combined 25-10 from 2019 to ’21, the Mustangs had an up-and-down 2022, going 7-6 in Lashlee’s return to the Hilltop (he was the offensive coordinator at SMU under Dykes in 2018 and 2019 before taking the same job at Miami in 2020). But in recruiting and in the portal, Lashlee and his staff have quickly turned over the roster, improving the talent level and depth. By the time SMU kicks off the season in September, more than two-thirds of the scholarship players on the roster will have been recruited by the current staff.
Advertisement
The fact that SMU is in this position is a testament to how far it has come. It is one of four former Southwest Conference schools that were cast aside following the league’s mid-1990s breakup. Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor joined the former Big 8 schools to form the Big 12 in 1996, and the four who were left out — Houston, Rice, SMU and TCU — were relegated to other conferences and less lucrative futures.
Two of those schools, TCU in 2012 and Houston this year, eventually landed in the Big 12. SMU and Rice both did tours through the WAC and Conference USA, with the Mustangs joining the AAC in 2013, but they still covet a power conference bid. (Rice will join them in the AAC this year.)
The post-Death Penalty malaise that hung over SMU’s program set it back decades, and the Ponies didn’t return to a bowl until 2009. But they’ve gradually inched back to relevance, posting nine seasons with a .500 or better record in the last 14 years.
Just taking that step was meaningful, and now there’s real energy and want-to galvanizing the football program. Sustaining it can lead to a bright future, regardless of its future conference home.
“Everything seems to be lining up well,” Lashlee said. “I think there’s a really good buzz around our program, and there’s good momentum. What we have to do is seize the moment and capitalize on it.”
(Photo: Sam Wasson / Getty Images)
