Oh, what a history the Southwest Conference left us with when it folded after the 1995 season due to scandal and abandonment! Its teams fled to various conferences, breaking up a historic union of teams (mostly in Texas) that dated back to 1915.  Our journey through the football conferences of the past brings us down this rough SWC road, as the league itself was known, sadly, for cheating and excess—so don’t mess with Texas?!

Uh huh. Either way, it’s important to remember what happened to each school in the conference: Arkansas fled early for the SEC, while the 8 schools in the final season (1995) either went to the Big 8 in its transformation into the Big XII—this was the fate of Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor—or to smaller conferences like Conference USA (Houston) and the WAC (Rice, SMU, TCU). What a mess!

5. 1950

The Texas Longhorns (9-2) won the conference with a perfect 6-0 mark in league play, as the SWC finished ranked first in the conference SRS rankings overall. The SMU Mustangs actually started the season ranked No. 1 in the preseason poll before finishing just 6-4 at the end. The Longhorns lost the Cotton Bowl, though, to finish No. 3 in the nation, while only Arkansas (2-8) completed the season with a losing record.

4. 1963

The Longhorns went 11-0 with a Cotton Bowl victory to win the MNC, and overall, the league finished second in the SRS rankings. Baylor (8-3) won the Bluebonnet Bowl, while SMU (4-7) lost the Sun Bowl to Oregon. We’re not sure why SMU was invited to a bowl game despite the losing record, especially since Rice (6-4) wasn’t invited to any bowls. We suspect it had something to do with money, of course. Wink, wink.

3. 1949

The Owls went undefeated in conference play (6-0) and finished 10-1 after a Cotton Bowl win over North Carolina. That earned Rice a No. 5 overall finish in the AP poll. The Aggies (1-8-1) were the only school to finish under .500 in a year that the SWC as a whole posted a 41-27-3 record—second in Division I-A in both win percentage and the overall SRS rankings. Baylor (8-2) ended up No. 20 in the nation as well.

2. 1951

In an odd season, TCU won the conference with a 5-1 record despite posting just a 6-5 record overall after its Cotton Bowl loss to Kentucky. The Horned Frogs still got ranked No. 11, however, and Baylor (8-2) ended up No. 9 overall in the poll. All seven teams were ranked at one point or another during the season as well as the SWC teams combined for an overall 39-29-4 record. The league was No. 1 in the overall SRS rankings.

1. 1947

The best season in SWC history came a long time ago: No.3 SMU won the conference (5-0-1) and finished 9-0-2 after tying Penn State in the Cotton Bowl. A 43-27-4 combined record was No. 2 in the country as the league finished first in the SRS rankings overall. Texas (10-1) ended up ranked No. 5 after its Sugar Bowl victory over Alabama, and No. 18 Rice (6-3-1) didn’t get invited to a bowl—while 4-5-2 TCU did (losing).