Texas A&M Football: The History of how Aggie football came to be

The 1980’s

1987

SMU is handed the Death Penalty and their football team is disbanded for the 1987 and 1988 seasons. They weren’t the only school cheating at the time, but they were the ones caught and the ones with the most repeated offenses.

There’s a reason you haven’t seen it in college football since – the Mustangs, once a college powerhouse, still haven’t recovered. Their record from 1989-2016 is 102-222. It was 21 years before SMU won more than six games in a season.

1989

The Knight Commission is formed to address the high occurrence of scandals in intercollegiate athletics, particularly in football and men’s basketball. This stems a lot from the SMU scandal and subsequent death penalty. Their 1991 report with suggestions for “academic integrity” and “improved academic governance” is the cornerstone of how athletics got to be where it is today.