SMU fans thrilled with CFP berth
The SMU Mustangs will play the Penn State Nittany Lions in the College Football Playoff. The school’s first playoff berth marks a return to relevance after the NCAA gave the program the “death penalty” in 1987.
DALLAS – SMU will play in the College Football Playoff for the first time ever.
The 11th-seeded Mustangs will take on No. 6 Penn State later this month.
The playoff berth didn’t come without a bit of concern.
SMU’s loss to Clemson in the ACC Championship Game on Saturday night opened the door to the Mustangs being left out for a three-loss Alabama team.
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA – DECEMBER 07: SMU Mustangs fans attend the 2024 ACC Football Championship at Bank of America Stadium on December 07, 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
SMU and their fans got the news that they hoped for from the selection committee on Sunday morning.
“I’m in Alpha Delta Pi Sorority. We were at the sorority house, put on the TV and watched the whole thing. It was crazy,” said Gianna Pugh. “We all screamed.”
For both new and longtime SMU fans, the reaction to making the College Football Playoff was the same.
“I started jumping up and down and yelling, everyone thought I was 16 again. I was so excited. I think it is great for Dallas,” said Reid Ryan on Sunday. “I’ve seen good and bad. I was there in the 80s when we had the Pony Express.”
Ryan was one of the nine boosters banned from the athletic department in 1985 for recruiting violations involving offering student athletes money and entertainment.
“It was everybody, it was an all-out war. I think when we started beating Texas at Austin they couldn’t take that. Aggies were beaten badly and Arkansas, and they went after us,” said Ryan.
The university became the only school to ever receive what is known as the “death penalty” from the NCAA.
The penalty required the Mustangs to cancel their 1987 season and the school canceled the 1988 season too.
The university also lost 55 scholarship positions for four years.
“I don’t think the penalty should ever happen again to anybody. What it did to SMU, what it would do to another school, it was crazy to do that,” said Ryan.
In 2021, the NCAA changed its rules to now allow student athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness.
“Now all of that is legal,” explained Matthew Wilson, the chair of the University Athletic Council at SMU.
He says this moment is long overdue.
“SMU has felt for some time that it really belonged at the top echelon of NCAA. Athletics in the biggest sports and being part of the first 12 team College Football Playoff really is a vindication of that belief and of the efforts to make that a reality,” said Wilson.
Wilson says returning to national relevance in football is driving more students to the school.
“Already this year new student applications to SMU are up more than 50% compared to last year, which is just a remarkable increase year over year. The donor base to the university is excited,” said Wilson.
That is also a win for the City of Dallas.
“SMU really is Dallas’s team. This is the premier university in a major urban center in the United States, and of course, that has all kinds of implications. Academically, economically,” said Wilson.
Now one more question remains: Can SMU pull off a win at Penn State?
“I think we can. They are a good team and will be hard to beat, but when our offense is rolling, I don’t know who is going to stop us,” said Reid.
SMU and Penn State play at Beaver Stadium on Saturday, Dec. 21 at 11 a.m.
