Lia Assimakopoulos, The Dallas Morning News
UNIVERSITY PARK, Texas -- One of the greatest products of SMU's football program, someone who just 10 years ago suggested shutting it all down, arrived on campus this week with a very different message.
On stage in front of a small crowd inside SMU's Armstrong Fieldhouse Tuesday, legendary running back Eric Dickerson leaned over to current Mustang defensive back Jonathan McGill to express his gratitude.
"Thank you," Dickerson said to McGill. "You don't understand how proud your Mustangs have made guys like me."
The moment came during a panel discussion about name, image and likeness and the opportunities for players to get paid while still in college. It was those exact opportunities that set the Mustangs back 40 years when they were dealt the NCAA's death penalty in 1987 for players such as Dickerson receiving illicit funds.
Years of dismal on-field performances as the Mustangs recovered from the devastating blow prompted the Pro Football Hall of Famer to publicly speak out against his beloved team in 2014.
"I meant it," he said. "It became an embarrassment."
But Dickerson's comments Tuesday marked a full-circle moment 40 years in the making, signaling that SMU had overcome the near-impossible road back to prominence.
SMU will play Saturday in the ACC championship game in its first year back in a power conference and possibly earn its first College Football Playoff berth and a chance to compete for a national championship.
"We're on the rise, and that's what puts a smile on my face," Dickerson said. "I just wanted us to be back to where we were when we played."
SMU's road back to college football's promised land was a long and demanding one, where the light at the end of the tunnel was often nonexistent. But after back-to-back 11-win seasons, the Mustangs' rise to the top has been rapid.
As SMU has shocked the nation in its first ACC season, it wasn't without years of planning, effort and hope that the program could overcome the most devastating punishment in college sports history.
A program once shunned for cheating the system is now one of college sports' greatest underdog stories, reviving a sense of excitement within its athletic programs and sending ripple effects all across the Hilltop.
"It's a level of perseverance and achievement that I think is unmatched because of that part of our history," SMU athletic director Rick Hart said. "SMU's athletic story is unlike any other."
A program brought to its knees
SMU's death penalty was the worst birthday present Bill Armstrong ever received.
The 1982 SMU alum was living in Denver, starting his family and career, shortly after graduating, when on Feb. 25, 1987, the NCAA announced it would give SMU the death penalty, canceling the next season and stripping the program of many of its allotted scholarships.
It followed an investigation that found players received cash payments with the assistance of athletic department staff members from a slush fund provided by a booster.
SMU was in its prime at the time, winning Southwest Conference championships in 1981, 1982 and 1984. It claimed two disputed national championships in 1981 and 1982 and went undefeated in '82 with Dickerson finishing third in the Heisman voting.
Armstrong never could've anticipated the effects the NCAA's punishment would have.
"I just thought we'd be bad for five years or something," said the Mustang mega-booster, who made his fortune in oil and gas. "There's a reason why the NCAA only did it once because they saw what it did to SMU."
Beyond canceling the 1987 season, the death penalty prompted SMU to cancel its 1988 season, citing that it would not have enough experienced players to field a competitive team since most transferred. SMU lost 55 new scholarship positions over four years. No off-campus recruiting was permitted until August 1988, and no paid visits could be made to campus by potential recruits until the start of the 1988-89 school year.
In the 33 seasons that followed after resuming play in 1989, SMU went 136-242-3. The Mustangs didn't make a bowl game again until 2009. They didn't win another conference championship until 2023.
The effects outside of athletics were just as damaging. The president of the university was terminated. The vast majority of the Board of Trustees resigned. Applications and alumni donations dropped dramatically.
"The death penalty was fundamentally an embarrassment, not just to athletics, but to the overall university's reputation and brand," said David Miller, chairman of the SMU Board of Trustees. "I was devastated to see an athletic program and a university that had such a deep and rich history brought to its knees."
The irony is nearly 40 years later, the same actions that devastated the university are playing a key role in its resurgence.
SMU pushed for decades to return to a power conference and only earned its spot in one after it agreed to forgo a share of media rights revenue from the ACC for nine years to get its foot in the door.
The Mustangs had to get creative and raise money on their own to support their athletic endeavors amid the move to the ACC, which included recruiting players through NIL and the transfer portal.
The university managed to set a record in 2023-24 of $159 million in fundraising, $100 million of which was secured in the week following the Sept. 1, 2023, announcement that the university would join the ACC.
That fundraising supported by billionaire alumni and boosters differentiates the institution, which is also a leader in the NIL space, as the Boulevard Collective pays football and men's basketball players $36,000 per year minimum. Many players make far more.
"It's unbelievably ironic. We were so far ahead of the curve. We invented NIL," Armstrong said, jokingly. "It just took the NCAA 40 years to figure it out."
Making up for lost time
While SMU's journey from the death penalty days felt never-ending, its rise since joining a power conference has been seemingly instantaneous.
The Mustangs became the most successful program to make the jump from a Group of Five conference to a power conference -- and the first to reach the championship game in that first year.
Their success may have seemed to happen overnight, but it resulted from years of preparation.
Head coach Rhett Lashlee studied other teams that made the jump from a Group of Five conference to a power conference, particularly those that did so in the Big 12. His mentor, Gus Malzahn, led a similar effort at UCF.
That taught him to invest in the trenches and build depth on his offensive and defensive lines, adding over a dozen transfers to those units.
"What I didn't know was how well were we going to hold up in the trenches and how well were we going to hold up in terms of our depth. I felt like if that did happen, we could get to November and at least be in contention," Lashlee said. "I knew we had a chance just because I knew the makeup of the guys and what we had done the year before."
Leading the team to an American Athletic Conference championship last year also prepared the group to repeat that blueprint in the ACC.
Last year's championship was SMU's first in 39 years, ending the drought spurred by the death penalty.
"I just wanted our guys to have the mindset that we've done this," Lashlee said. "We may not be defending the ACC, but we're defending champs, so let's act like it. Let's believe it. Let's know that's who we are and then maybe we'll find a way to play like it."
Meanwhile, Hart consulted with other athletic directors and Miller did the same with board chairs. SMU's leadership became experts on the jump in all facets, allowing it to form the perfect plan.
The instant success in the ACC wasn't required. The Mustangs would've been respected had they finished middle-of-the-pack and made a bowl game in their first year.
But those within the program are reveling in this type of season they once felt they may never have again.
"We're making up for 40 years of no fun, making up for lost time," Armstrong said.
An institutional moment
The success in SMU's first season in the ACC is not limited to football.
SMU volleyball enters the NCAA tournament this week as a No. 2 seed, its best seeding in program history. Men's soccer is hosting an Elite Eight match on Saturday.
But the implications for the larger university are the most significant.
Applications are up nearly 50% year-over-year, per Miller. Just as the death penalty lowered the quality of students that attended the university, Armstrong said, its leadership anticipates the visibility caused by athletic success will lead to a much stronger student wanting to spend their four years at SMU.
Miller, who played basketball for SMU in the 1960s and 70s, and Armstrong are two of the university's top donors. Both consider athletics to be one of their main priorities for reasons now being seen through football's success.
"All of the stuff that he and I are doing for the sports program -- and a lot of other people too -- we're doing it for the university, not for the football team," Armstrong said. "If we could have a Nobel Prize winner or we could go to the Final Four, which one would you rather have? The one that gets you all the attention."
The start of SMU's 2024-25 school year has shined a spotlight directly on the institution and its athletic programs in a way that hasn't happened since its greatest scandal in history.
The university has waited 40 years for its moment ... to redefine its reputation. Now that the opportunity is here, it's seizing it.
"Sometimes these things can take time. You have to be persistent and continue to believe in the destination," Hart said. "This is an institutional moment. While this is an investment in athletics, and it's an athletics conference, this is really a university moment."