SMU used to be one of college football’s top dogs. Now, some think they might be on the way back.
On3’s Andy Staples believes the Mustangs have what it takes to make a serious run at a national championship—thanks to their new ACC home, deep-pocketed boosters, and a strong NIL presence.
Analyst Explains Why the SMU Mustangs Could Compete At the Highest Level
During a mailbag segment on the Andy & Ari On3 podcast, a listener asked which team outside the SEC, Big Ten, Notre Dame, Clemson, Florida State, and Miami could win it all next.
“I have a few potentials,” Staples said. “I think SMU, in the era of paying players, now that they’re in the ACC, I think they could cycle up to that. I think that’s possible…SMU goes into the ACC and immediately is competitive.”
He continued, “We know they’re really good at paying players, going back decades. Paying players is allowed now, so why can’t SMU become that? They have lots of rich boosters. They have lots of passionate, rich boosters who like SMU football a lot.”
It’s a bold take, but not as wild as it sounds.
SMU has a long history of funding success. In the early ’80s, the Mustangs went 41-5-1, ranked in the AP top 10 three times, and were led by stars like Eric Dickerson and Craig James. That run ended when the NCAA handed the program the “death penalty” in 1987 for paying players, a massive scandal at the time.
Fast-forward to now, and paying players is legal through NIL deals. SMU’s boosters are back in the game—and playing by the rules this time.
Since hiring head coach Rhett Lashlee, the Mustangs have returned to relevance. They were ACC runners-up last season and even made the College Football Playoff. That’s a big leap for a program with only two winning seasons between 1989 and 2009.
Co-host Ari Wasserman said only a few programs outside the powerhouses have the talent pipeline to compete seriously.
“Trying to use the information that we have right now available to us to make an educated guess, the only places I can go to in a good faith response to that (question) would be teams that are capable of acquiring talent at a certain rate,” Wasserman said.
“And those teams are very limited. Which, right now, in the Big 12, I look at SMU, Colorado, and Texas Tech as being in that bucket, and no else. And I don’t know who else is in the ACC that can threaten for that.”
Arguing SMU’s case, Staples pointed out that Clemson wouldn’t have been grouped with elite companies if the same question had been posed in 2004. The Tigers were a pedestrian program until Dabo Swinney took over in 2008. They’ve won a pair of national titles since and have reached the College Football Playoff in seven of the past ten seasons.
Wasserman said the Mustangs won’t be a legitimate threat until they “can convince high schoolers that they’re an option over (Texas) A&M and Texas and LSU and Oklahoma … and it not be a weird thing.”
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