SMU Mustangs celebrate historic first season in ACC
DALLAS – It's been a historic first season in the ACC for the SMU Mustangs.
On Saturday at Ford Stadium, the team celebrated its best season in decades. Now, they're heading to the conference championship.
"Just seeing my school doing well is super exciting!" Bianca Ihekwoada said.
Longtime fans like Debra Murphy are making plans.
"We'll be at the Charlotte game on Saturday," she said. "We fly out Friday morning with 12 other people, graduates from SMU. The weather is not going to be good, but we expect to have a fantastic time!"
At the university's annual holiday event on Monday night, the excitement was as vibrant as the tree lighting.
"Oh yeah, it's kind of like a mix of vengeance, you know, towards all of the ACC," Blake Wallace said. "Everybody said we were going to lose all the games, and now we're whopping them!"
This season, the Mustangs set a new attendance record of just over 228,000.
Football fans believe this is just the beginning of a bright future ahead and say the team has come a long way since the scandal of 1987 when the team was suspended for an entire season for repeated rules violations.
"I think what this means for SMU, getting in the conference championship, hopefully winning that, making the college football playoffs, the sky is the limit for SMU football and I just cannot wait to see where this brings us," Suda said.
The Mustangs will face the Clemson Tigers this Saturday in the ACC Championship in Charlotte.