TCU athletic director opens door for a return of the Iron Skillet against SMU
After watching Texas reunite with Texas A&M, and most recently Kansas do the same with good friend Missouri, it’s a matter of when TCU and SMU will be on the schedule again.
TCU’s game against SMU on Sept. 20 in Fort Worth will “end” one of the longest-running rivalries in college football, the Battle for the Iron Skillet.
Don’t expect this end to be permanent.
TCU coach Sonny Dykes doesn’t want to play SMU, and that’s that. When this was decision was made, in 2023, TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati endorsed the idea, and acted accordingly.
SMU has changed dramatically since TCU made that decision. It’s no longer a Group of Five school, and last season, its first in the ACC, it reached the conference title game and the College Football Playoff.
Donati left for South Carolina in December 2024, and his replacement is willing to consider a new future with SMU. The safest bet is that it will happen again. And the safer bet is that it’s going to be a while.
“Number one, our schedule is pretty much booked through 2032, but I would like to talk to [SMU director of athletics] Damon Evans about it for sure,” TCU director of athletics Mike Buddie said this week in a phone interview.
“I would like to go through a full cycle, or season, to know where we are before making any of those decisions. I know having talked to our fan base that it didn’t have an appetite to play a Group of Five team when we were a Power Four.”
SMU joined the ACC in the summer of 2024, so that reason no longer fits.
“There is a great argument to made to continue the series, and there’s an argument not to continue the series,” Buddie said.
The great argument is tradition, money, convenience, and SMU vs. TCU is now a Power Four game, no different than TCU’s future opponents such as North Carolina, Stanford, Duke and Purdue.
“For me so far, and I want to stress that is a small sample size, but I have yet to hear from one of our fans who had a good experience when they attended a game at SMU. Again, it’s a small sample size,” Buddie said. “That is a factor you have to consider because you want your fans to feel safe and to have a good experience for any game they attend.
“Another one is Sonny coached there. That is the main for one me, because he does have a tricky past when it comes that.”
Sonny Dykes’ history with SMU
Dykes was working as TCU’s offensive analyst in 2017 when he accepted the SMU head coaching job to replace the fired Chad Morris. From 2019 to ‘21, SMU enjoyed its best three-year run since the infamous “Death Penalty,” sanctioned by the NCAA when the team did not play in 1987 or ‘88.
Throughout much of the 2021 season, Dykes was an in-demand name for head coaching positions. His performance at SMU repaired the damage his reputation sustained from his tenure as the head coach at the University of California, where he was from 2013 to ‘16.
Primarily because SMU was in the American Athletic Conference, Dykes’ departure was inevitable.
When he left SMU to replace Gary Patterson as TCU’s head coach after the 2021 season, it left a mark on SMU fans that they will never forgive. No matter how much credit Dykes deserves for the job he did in resurrecting that program, or that it’s in great shape under current coach Rhett Lashlee, in the eyes of those on the Hilltop, leaving SMU for TCU is your husband bailing on you for your broke ugly older sister.
TCU is 2-1 against SMU since Dykes took over, including a humiliating 66-42 defeat last season in Dallas. In the second half, Dykes was ejected for arguing with officials.
TCU officials said that some of the SMU fans behavior toward Dykes and the TCU sidelines during the games at SMU in ‘22 and ‘24 did “cross the line.”
For Buddie, those details make rescheduling this anytime soon “tricky.”
Then there is the other element: “If we do schedule that game, in 2032, are Clemson, North Carolina and Florida State still in the ACC?” Buddie asked rhetorically. “I don’t think anyone would assume that.”
Speculation remains rampant that those three ACC schools will leave that league before the end of this decade for the SEC or Big Ten. Those departures could spur another round of realignment, and potentially do to the ACC what happened to the Pac-12 when that league saw USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington leave for the Big Ten.
Speculation aside, TCU has a long history with SMU that should eventually drive the pair to hook up again.
Rivalries can return after respite
When Texas A&M left the Big 12 for the SEC after the 2011 season, that ended its annual football game against the University of Texas. There were plenty of hurt feelings both directions.
When UT joined the SEC last season, it played Texas A&M for the first time since ‘11, and every seat inside Kyle Field was sold at a premium.
When Missouri left the Big 12 for the SEC, in 2011, it ended the “Border War” series against Kansas. KU people were irate that MU left the Big 12, and vowed to never play Missouri again.
“Never” lasted about a decade; the basketball series returned in 2021. Last Saturday the two former Big Eight schools played each other in football for the first time since 2010. Every seat at Missouri’s Faurot Field was sold, and the mid-afternoon telecast on ESPN2 drew a 1.8 rating, the highest of any game on that network in three years.
These are the types of games that made college football what it is today.
TCU v. SMU will come back. Give it a decade. Maybe less.
This story was originally published September 11, 2025 at 5:07 PM.
