On February 25, 1987, the NCAA canceled SMU’s entire football season. It is the only time the NCAA has ever wiped out a full season for a football playing school, the punishment came to be called the death penalty, and the NCAA has never used it on a football program again. Here is what SMU did, what the penalty actually said, and how long the program took to come back.
What SMU Actually Did
A booster funded slush fund paid SMU football players under the table from the mid 1970s through 1986. The NCAA found that in 1985 and 1986 alone, 13 players received about $61,000, in monthly payments ranging from $50 to $725. Those payments started roughly one month after SMU had been placed on probation.
This was the part that made the penalty possible. SMU was not a first offender. The 1987 case was its seventh probation since 1958 and its third of the 1980s, which put it squarely inside the NCAA’s repeat violator rule. The NCAA report said the school’s record of violations was nothing short of abysmal.
The payments were also known at the top. Bill Clements, then the governor of Texas and the chairman of SMU’s board of governors, was aware of them and had signed off on winding the fund down gradually rather than stopping it.
Timeline
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1981 to 1986 | SMU is one of the best programs in the country under Ron Meyer and then Bobby Collins, losing only a handful of games and going unbeaten in 1982 with a Cotton Bowl win. The Pony Express backfield makes the Mustangs a national name |
| 1985 | SMU is banned from bowl games for two years and loses 45 scholarships, considered a severe punishment at the time. The payments continue anyway |
| Nov. 1986 | Former recruit David Stanley tells WFAA in Dallas that he was paid. Sports director Dale Hansen confronts SMU officials on camera with a letter from the recruiting office, and the interview effectively ends the school’s defense |
| Feb. 25, 1987 | The NCAA cancels SMU’s entire 1987 season and all four of its 1988 home games. Enforcement director David Berst announces it and faints moments afterward in front of the assembled media |
| 1988 | SMU is allowed to play its seven scheduled road games so opponents do not lose money, but school officials conclude they cannot field a viable team and sit out the season entirely |
| 1989 | SMU returns and goes 2 and 9 |
| 1989 to 2008 | One winning season in 20 years and no bowl appearances |
| 2009 | SMU reaches a bowl game for the first time since the scandal, 22 seasons after the penalty came down |
What the Penalty Included
- The entire 1987 season canceled. Only conditioning drills were permitted that year
- All four 1988 home games canceled
- 55 scholarship positions stripped
- No off campus recruiting until August 1988 and no paid campus visits until the 1988 to 1989 school year
- A limit of five assistant coaches
- Nine boosters banned from any contact with the program
- The bowl and television ban extended through 1989 and probation extended to 1990
It could have been worse. The committee credited SMU’s faculty athletics representative, Lonnie Kliever, for cooperating with the investigation, and that cooperation kept the program from being shut down through 1989 and from losing its vote at NCAA conventions.
Why the NCAA Never Did It Again
The penalty worked in the sense that it ended SMU football as a competitive program, and that is exactly why it has not been repeated. Since 1987, 31 schools have committed two major violations inside a five year window, which is the technical threshold for the death penalty, and none of them has received it. The collateral damage also reached beyond the school. The scandal helped push the Southwest Conference toward its eventual collapse.
Where SMU Is Now
SMU joined the ACC in 2024 and agreed to take no share of the conference’s media rights money for its first nine years, a deal funded largely by wealthy alumni, in order to get back into a power conference. The Mustangs have been to a bowl game in each of their last four seasons and opened 2026 ranked 19th in the AP poll. Their Week 1 game is at Florida State: full preview on our SMU vs. Florida State page.
The Bottom Line
SMU received the NCAA death penalty on February 25, 1987 for paying players out of a booster slush fund while already on probation for the same thing. The NCAA canceled the 1987 season and SMU canceled 1988. The program had one winning season over the next two decades and did not play in a bowl game again until 2009. No football program has been given the penalty since.