Southern Methodist University football scandal

The Southern Methodist University football scandal (also known as Ponygate) was an incident in which the football program at Southern Methodist University was investigated and punished for massive violations of NCAA rules and regulations. The most serious violation was the maintenance of a slush fund used for "under the table" payments to players from the mid-1970s through 1986. This culminated in the NCAA handing down the so-called "death penalty" by canceling SMU's entire 1987 schedule. SMU was allowed to return for an abbreviated 1988 season, but opted to sit that season out as well after school officials determined it would be impossible to field a viable team.

The severity of the penalty left the SMU football program in ruin. The Mustangs had only one winning season over the next 20 years and failed to make another bowl game until 2009. To date, it is one of the most severe penalties ever imposed on a Division I program, and the only time the NCAA has canceled a football-playing school's entire season at any level.

The SMU Mustangs had won the 1935 national championship (as determined by the Dickinson System), 10 Southwest Conference titles, and had attended 11 bowl games. They also had numerous All-Americans including a Heisman Trophy winner (Doak Walker in 1949). From 1980 to 1984, SMU enjoyed its most successful era since the late 1940s and early 1950s. They posted a record of 49–9–1 and won three Southwest Conference titles. They nearly won their second national title in 1982, when they finished the season as the only undefeated team in the nation. However, the team lost its shot at a title when it settled for a tie against Arkansas in the last game of the season in order to lock up the conference title and a spot in the Cotton Bowl, rather than risk a two-point conversion that could have won the contest. For most of the first half of the 1980s, the Mustangs played at Texas Stadium, then the home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys.

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