By Gaylon Krizak-Guest Writer
“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.” — Narrator, “1984”
In 1984, the Southwest Conference celebrated its 70th anniversary by staging a championship race no one seemed to want to win. The co-champions that eventually emerged would find themselves facing major NCAA sanctions over the years that immediately followed, one absorbing a penalty never before — and never since — issued.
The other one represented the conference in the Cotton Bowl with a 7-4 record and was held in such high regard by bowl officials that one was famously quoted as saying: “On the day of the game their fans drive up and eat at 7-Elevens or rob them.”
A conference that since the mid-1930s had been among the nation’s elite — one whose champion the year before was a play or two away from a national championship — was reduced to that. And it would only get worse.
Texas, that ’83 contender, quickly shot up to No. 1 in the ’84 polls when it beat preseason No. 1 Auburn at home, then routed Penn State at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. Even after a controversial tie with No. 3 Oklahoma in dismal conditions in Dallas (Sooners fans to this day claim OU was robbed of a late interception in the end zone that all but would have sealed the win), the Longhorns were No. 2 through seven games.
Then came the collapse. UT lost three of its final four (four of five, counting its bowl game), awakening only to rout the year’s surprise team, TCU, 44-23. Sandwiching that were losses of 29-15 to Houston (nine turnovers), 24-10 at Baylor (five interceptions) and 37-12 to Texas A&M, which set the stage for a run of successful seasons by finishing 6-5 with season-closing wins over TCU and UT.
(Later, after an embarrassing loss to Iowa in the inaugural Freedom Bowl, one Texas fan joked that the Longhorns had installed the “Speed Limit defense — we stopped ’em at 55” (to UT’s 17).)
The Longhorns’ plunge left SMU and Houston in control of the Cotton Bowl race, which went down to the wire and was settled only when UH beat Rice 38-26 in the final game. The Mustangs had the better overall record (9-2 to 7-4), but when each finished 6-2 in SWC play, the Cougars got the bid opposite Boston College by virtue of their 29-20 victory over SMU in mid-October.
On a freezing, drizzly New Year’s Day in Dallas, Doug Flutie and BC promptly disposed of the Cougars 45-28, leaving the UH fans — at least one of whose cars sported a sign that read: “Where’s the 7-Eleven? We’re hungry” — even less happy with their trek up Interstate 45 … those who made the trip, anyway. The crowd of 56,522 (67,381 paid) was the game’s smallest since 1978, when Maryland took on … Houston.
SMU, meanwhile, got a trip to Hawaii for its efforts, and cashed in with 27-20 Aloha Bowl victory over Notre Dame (the SWC’s only bowl win in five tries that season). But the seeds of the Mustangs’ undoing — and, ultimately, the conference’s as well — already had been sown.
Eric Dickerson-symbolized SMU's rise and fall
In its preseason edition, Sports Illustrated hinted at what was to come: “Many Mustang boosters blame Texas for the tip-offs that launched the ongoing NCAA investigation of the SMU football program. THE LIES OF TEXAS ARE UPON YOU read SMU bumper stickers. Meanwhile, Longhorn fans add to the atmosphere of the Vitriol Bowl with bumper stickers that read SUPPORT PRO FOOTBALL: WATCH THE SMU MUSTANGS.”
That investigation led to three years’ probation in 1985 for recruiting violations, with sanctions including a two-year bowl ban that kept 6-5 SMU teams in ’85 and ’86 home for the holidays. But that was a parking ticket compared to what awaited.
In 1987, the NCAA handed down the so-called Death Penalty, shutting down the SMU program for at least one season because of the continuing nature of its recruiting violations and a slush fund to finance payments to players (approval for which came from, among others, alumnus Gov. Bill Clements).
The Mustangs did not field a team again until 1989, and have been largely uncompetitive since the NCAA’s nuclear option was unleashed. So damaging was the penalty, in fact, that it has not been utilized again at the Division I level.
That’s not to say the NCAA quit handing down probations, however. During the 1980s, only Baylor, Rice and Arkansas among the nine SWC schools escaped some sort of NCAA football penalty.
With its programs in tatters, SWC teams soon saw Texas high school talent leaving the state in unheard-of numbers. In its final eight seasons as Cotton Bowl host, the conference saw its champion — including borderline national title contenders Texas (1990) and A&M (1992) — lose every time. The bowl committee increasingly turned to the opponent as the drawing card, bringing in Heisman winners Flutie, Bo Jackson of Auburn and Tim Brown of Notre Dame during a four-year stretch.
By 1992, Arkansas was gone, having bolted for the Southeastern Conference. By 1996, the SWC was no more, its remaining members scattered throughout three leagues. Those who grew up around it and thought it would last forever learned their Orwellian lesson the hard way.