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Team: Southern Methodist University Mustangs
League: NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision
Conference: American Athletic Conference
Home Stadium: Gerald J. Ford Stadium
Head Coach: Sonny Dykes
Colors: Red and Blue
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The Southern Methodist University Mustangs football program is one of the most interesting in NCAA history, and you can feel the weight of it when you attend a home game at
Gerald J. Ford Stadium
. The team played its first season in 1915 and won its first national championship in 1935 under head coach Matty Bell. The program is infamous and probably best known for the “ ”Death Penalty“ ” it was handed by the NCAA in 1987, and SMU football was forced to rebuild entirely after two years of no football. It's taken a long time for the program to regain national prominence, but it is certainly relevant once again; the team has competed in bowl games five times since 2009, most recently in the 2017 Frisco Bowl. Browse on StubHub to get your SMU Mustangs football tickets to see the team play in 2019.
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The biggest rival for the Mustangs is the
Texas Christian University Horned Frogs
football team. The two teams, located only 40 miles apart, have played 96 times over the years with SMU trailing TCU on a record of 40-49-7. The teams played each other in every season but six since their first game in 1915. The Mustangs also have a fierce rivalry with
Rice University
, located in Houston. Both schools are consistently among the best private university football programs in the state of Texas.
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Southern Methodist's current head football coach is Sonny Dykes. He was hired at the end of the 2017 season, just prior to the Mustangs' appearance in the
Frisco Bowl
, which the team lost to
Louisiana Tech
. In 2018, his first full season with the Mustangs, he coached the team to a 5-7 record. Dykes has previously held coaching positions with TCU,
UC-Berkeley
and Louisiana Tech, among other schools.
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The Mustangs were most famously a part of the powerhouse Southwest Conference until it joined the Western Athletic Conference in 1996. SMU football is currently a cornerstone of the West Division of the
American Athletic Conference
with teams like the
University of Houston Cougars
and the
Navy Midshipmen
. In the East Division of the AAC are teams like the
University of Central Florida Knights
and the
University of Cincinnati Bearcats
.
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Four former SMU Mustangs football players have been inducted into the
Pro Football Hall of Fame
. They are Raymond Berry, Forrest Gregg, Doak Walker and, perhaps the best-known Mustang of all time, Eric Dickerson. Doak Walker is the school's only Heisman Trophy winner, taking the award in 1948. He also won the Maxwell Award in 1947.
''SMU has been awarded three NCAA national championships by different selection bodies. The program won the 1935 national championship despite losing in the Rose Bowl to Stanford at the end of that season. The National Championship Foundation crowned 10-1 SMU the best team in 1981, and the Helms Athletic Foundation called the Mustangs the best team in the country following its 11-0-1 campaign in 1982.'
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The 2019 Mustangs football season opens on Aug. 31 versus
Arkansas State
. The Mustangs will travel to play
North Texas
on Sept. 7 and face rival TCU at home on Sept. 21. The team will close out its 2019 season versus the Navy Midshipmen on Nov. 23 and the
Tulane Green Wave
on Nov. 30. After that, fans will get to see if and where SMU goes to a bowl game.
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