The only SMU quarterback to lead teams to consecutive top-five finishes, the guy who went 34-5-1 in his four seasons during the early ‘80s, has finished his favorite cole slaw at S & D Oyster Co., is working his way through mine and is minutes away from ordering a third when the subject of the new Boulevard Collective is raised.
Just days ago it was announced that all SMU football players would receive $36,000 per season, and that’s just from one collective. There are other deals to be made. But the Boulevard figure tops, for example, the $25,000 that Texas Tech’s Matador Collective will pay its Red Raiders.
“It’s a moving target. It’s crazy, I can’t see how it will be good,” Lance McIlhenny said, the words tumbling out as fast as the cole slaw is going in. “I don’t know enough. Boulevard Collective, I get it. But does everyone get paid? Walk-ons too? Are they one-year contracts, do players get paid if they go into the transfer portal?
“It’s all about who wants to dig into their pockets and pay 17-year-olds to play for their school. And SMU can play in that game. We have the financial backers that have the stability to do that."
The trouble, of course, is that SMU “played in that game” long before it was permissible. Before diving into Rangers and Cowboys and Stars games, the last college beat I covered was SMU in 1983. McIlhenny was a senior. The Pony Express of Eric Dickerson and Craig James had moved on the year before. But after finishing second and fifth in the final polls, the ‘83 Mustangs still managed a No. 12 final ranking as McIlhenny handed off and threw to freshmen and underclassmen.
SMU was in between a milder probation and the Death Penalty at the time, but things were going on. And four decades later, McIlhenny tells me over fried shrimp what he wouldn’t admit to back then.
It was after practice during his junior year that he saw a defensive lineman reach into his locker and grab an envelope of cash next to his socks and jocks. McIlhenny went to an offensive coach’s office to ask just how many players were being paid.
“The next day — and only the next day — there were seven 100-dollar bills in my locker. I guess it was hush money,” McIlhenny said. “The only other thing that happened, I was betting on some pro football with a bookie, and I got upside down. I had a $1,200 problem. I talked to [the offensive coach], and a booster paid my debt. As soon as I graduated, I sent the booster a check for $1,200 but he mailed it back to me torn into pieces saying my debt was already paid.
“That was it. That was my involvement in getting paid at SMU. Forty years ago."
McIlhenny said no one really discussed the money floating around at the time. “I mean Datsun 280-ZX’s were very prevalent in the players’ parking lot, and I wondered why all our wide receivers seemed to have one. But aside from that, there wasn’t a whole lot of money. We were close to getting out of the woods. And then … it got bad.”
One can only guess at the hundreds of millions that the Death Penalty, which came down three years after McIlhenny was gone, has cost the Mustangs. Since the Southwest Conference imploded in 1995, SMU has spent 26 seasons wandering through the non-Power Five conferences with some seasons bringing more success than others. But how much money per year do Baylor and TCU and Texas Tech — teams that were hardly superior to the Mustangs in the ‘80s — receive from their Big 12 contracts in comparison?
My question is now that schools are essentially bragging about how much money they pay their players (indirectly… wink wink), should we view those Mustang Mania teams with a less-jaundiced eye? Sure, they were cheating and it went all the way to the Governor’s office as we know. But with the money that college athletics generates today, the prevailing attitude is to pay the players whatever they want. In 1982, Jackie Sherrill made history by going to Texas A&M for a shocking $280,000 per year package. College coordinators today make five times that amount, and Power Five head coaches make 20 times as much. And more.
We reset our minds in other areas when we gain a new perspective. SMU was just ahead of the curve. Isn’t it time to say that McIlhenny, Dickerson, James, Michael Carter, Russell Carter and all the rest put on a hell of a good show in Dallas and leave it at that?
“We were certainly a great team, had great players and won a bunch of games,” McIlhenny said. “But people are going to regard us however they want to regard us. Do we want an apology from the NCAA? I don’t think so. It’s just that the penalty they handed down had a crippling effect on our program.
“What SMU has right now, they just have to win, whether it’s WAC or Conference-USA or American doesn’t matter. Ultimately, if we’re winning and there is change, we’re going to be in the middle of the mix just because we’re in Dallas."
With Sonny Dykes having helicoptered across town to TCU, a new Mustang era begins with former coordinator Rhett Lashlee in charge and former Sooner Tanner Mordecai at quarterback. I have no idea how long Mordecai can hold off Preston Stone or how many games he might win. But I guarantee he’ll make a lot more money at SMU than McIlhenny ever did.