team competing as a member of Division I FBS. The football team plays at Gerald J. Ford Stadium on the SMU campus. The Mustangs compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) as of the 2025-26 season. Prior to that, the Mustangs played in the American Athletic Conference (previously named the Big East Conference), the now-defunct Southwest Conference, and the Western Athletic Conference.
SMU's closest rival in athletics is Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth, Texas. In football, SMU and TCU compete annually (with the exception of 2006, and 2020) for the Iron Skillet. SMU also competes annually with Rice University in football for the Mayor's Cup, a traveling trophy that has been created to enhance the Rice-SMU rivalry, which dates back to 1916.
From 1980 to 1985, SMU had one of the strongest programs in Division I-A (now FBS). They posted a record of 55–14–1, and finished these seasons ranked No. 21, No. 7, No. 2, No. 19, and No. 8 in the nation. These "winningest" years concluded with on February …
