SMU Mustangs football scandal

The Southern Methodist University football scandal occurred in 1987 when the SMU Mustangs football program at Southern Methodist University (SMU) was investigated and penalized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for massive violations of rules and regulations over a period of several years between the late 1970s and mid-1980s. The most serious violation was the maintenance of a large slush fund used for "under the table" payments to players and their families to entice them to come to SMU to play from the early 1970s onward.

In early 1987, the NCAA investigated SMU's football program for these and other violations, and imposed what is referred to as the "death penalty"—banning a team from competition for a year or more. While it was not the only SWC school to be sanctioned—at one point, five of the conference's nine member schools were on some form of probation—SMU's violations were considered to be particularly egregious.