The 1935 SMU Mustangs football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

team that represented

Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = "The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , ...

(SMU) in the

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma ...

(SWC) during the

1935 college football season The 1935 college football season was the last one before the Associated Press writers' poll was used in selecting the national champion. There were seven contemporary math system selectors that year who are informally recognized by the NCAA as "n ...

. In their first season under head coach

Matty Bell William Madison "Matty" Bell (February 22, 1899 – June 30, 1983) was an American football player, coach of football and basketball, and college athletics administrator. He played for Centre, captain of its 1918 team. He served as the head footbal ...

, the Mustangs posted an overall record of 12–1 record with a mark of 6–0 in conference play, winning the SWC title. SMU was invited to the Rose Bowl, where they lost to Stanford. The Mustangs shut out eight of thirteen opponents and outscored all opponents by a total of 288 to 39 on the season. SMU was named as the national champion in 1935 by the

Dickinson System The Dickinson System was a mathematical point formula that awarded national championships in college football. Devised by University of Illinois economics professor Frank G. Dickinson, the system crowned national champions from 1925 to 1940. Dicki ...

and

Houlgate System The Houlgate System, also known as the Deke Houlgate collegiate football rating system, was a mathematical rating system for determining annual college football national championships. The ratings, which rated teams according to the strength of th ...

, and retroactively by Berryman and Sagarin, and was one of five teams chosen by selectors recognized as official by the NCAA. Two SMU players, halfback Bob Wilson and guard J. C. Wetsel, were selected as a consensus first-team player on the 1935 All-America college football team. In addition, tackle Truman Spain was selected as a first-team All-American by ''

Collier's Weekly ''Collier's'' was an American general interest magazine founded in 1888 by Peter Fenelon Collier. It was launched as ''Collier's Once a Week'', then renamed in 1895 as ''Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal'', shortened in 1905 to ''Colli ...

'' and as a second-team All-American by the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

Schedule

References

External links

Video of TCU contest
SMU SMU Mustangs football seasons College football national champions Southwest Conference football champion seasons

SMU Mustangs football The SMU Mustangs football program is a college football team representing Southern Methodist University (SMU) in University Park in Dallas County, Texas. The team competes in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) as a member of the American ...

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