Mac Engel: SMU is undefeated but its goal is to join TCU as a Power 5 conference team

DALLAS _ SMU students know the Death Penalty only by name, and the president of the private school in Dallas estimates what shattered the school's football program was not that infamous sanction but rather the same thing that once afflicted TCU.

"When I first got here in 1995, the commitment from the board of regents was to recover from the Death Penalty," SMU President R. Gerald Turner said in a recent interview. "But that was compounded by the fact that we changed conferences when we were left out of the Big 12. That's what really got us."

Other than not having a power football team in the 1980s, TCU and SMU are analogous. Both received harsh NCAA penalties in the '80s, and were left out when the Big 8 and Southwest Conference merged in 1995 to form the Big 12.

It took TCU 15 years, give or take, lots of wins, lots of millions, and the luck of a 1,000 lifetimes to earn the invite back into the conference that dumped it. SMU has needed even more time, and, if it can take anything from TCU's plan, is to recognize that this season is not an arrival.

For the first time since the NCAA took the unprecedented measure and gave the SMU football program "The Death Penalty" in 1987 for countless violations the team itself is relevant for the right reasons. The university features a football program that is a point of sale.

The Mustangs are 6-0, and ranked No. 19 in the nation. This is the first year they have been ranked since 1986.

On Saturday, SMU will host No 25 Temple (coaches' poll) at Gerald Ford Stadium in Dallas; it's the first time in that stadium both teams will be ranked.

Turner himself admits that his university does not need this from its football team to sell his school to prospective students or donors. That this sort of success "is gravy," he said.

"I've often said you don't have to be 10-2 or 12-0," Turner said, "but you can't be 0-12 or 2-10; then it becomes a detriment. It is important that every part of your university to be viewed in a positive way."

To propel its brand, TCU needed football more than SMU.

SMU has always maintained a reputation on the fringe of the college's holy grail: The U.S. News World and Report Top 50. Football is not going to change that.

What a football team can do is enhance the brand and generate "free" positive advertising and marketing. That is the element that TCU capitalized on, and has eluded from SMU for decades.