ARLINGTON, Texas — On a September Saturday in 2022, the Southwest Conference had itself a weekend. In Dallas, SMU had a record crowd on hand to greet the traitor Sonny Dykes, who had jumped ship to rival TCU, only to watch the Horned Frogs come away with the Iron Skillet in their 101st meeting.
Just 24 miles away, Texas A&M knocked off a top-10 Arkansas in their 79th two-step together, in a weird, tense game that typifies their matchups since their old rivalry resumed at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. And in Lubbock, another 336 or so miles from Arlington, Texas Tech upset No. 22 Texas in front of the Red Raiders’ first sellout crowd since 2018, and many of the 60,975 in attendance flooded the field in the aftermath.
Now, the SWC hasn’t existed since 1996, but the passion will never die, despite attempts to kill it. On one Saturday in Texas, there were three games with three packed stadiums amid an attendance crisis for administrators at many schools, a reminder that sometimes it’s more fun to play someone with a little extra hate on the line.
Since the SWC’s breakup, TCU has played in four conferences (WAC, Conference USA, Mountain West and now, the Big 12) while SMU was aligned in the WAC and CUSA before landing in the American. Still, despite their nomadic journeys in search of future relevance, they’ve managed to maintain a regional rivalry for more than a century.
“I think it makes sense for teams that are close to each other to play each other,” Dykes said two weeks ago when the drumbeat started for his return to Dallas. “You know, that’s why it makes so much sense for USC to be in the Big Ten … they’re right there next to each other.”
Dykes’ sarcasm comes at a time when realignment continues to pull at the strings of college football’s fabric, breaking up long-standing rivalries and making it harder for fans to get to, or even care about, games. The Iron Skillet — once so celebrated that legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice called the 1935 edition the “Game of the Century” — has no guarantee of continuing past 2024 when the current contract ends.
As leagues go to more conference games and athletic budgets are determined by home games, Power 5 teams like TCU don’t often make trips to Group of 5 schools, so TCU might opt to ditch playing in Dallas every other year, when it could schedule another home game. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State have already made it clear Bedlam will not continue when the Sooners leave for the SEC, just like the Texas…
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