Poney Excess Review

On Saturday night, ESPN debuted their newest and last 30 For 30 documentary 'Poney Excess.' Watching the documentary had me thinking about the college scandals we see today and realizing that's child's play compared to what happened at SMU during the early 1980's and mid 1980's.

'Poney Excess' was about the SMU football scandal which lead to SMU being, so far, the only team to receive the so called "Death Penalty" from the NCAA in Division 1 football. The movie delves into how pretty much every team in the old Southwest Conference (Or SWC) was basically paying football players under the table. The movie discussed Texas A&M basically giving Eric Dickerson a Gold Trans-AM to come and play for them. (He went to SMU)

The movie delves into the Texas/Dallas culture of that era. Oil and Real Estate was booming in the 1980's and many of those men were SMU grads. When they realized their school couldn't compete with the Texas' of the world, they decided to pay for players. Not only would these boosters pay for players, but they would actually keep the players on a payroll or pay for a car or give players families houses to live in.


Boosters weren't the only ones in the scam, but school officials and coaches knew what was happening. Specifically Bill Clements then the Chairman of board of trustees who would later go on as the Texas Governor knew what was happening. Naturally after SMU was hammered by the NCAA, Clements was told he should resign as Governor.

The NCAA basically hammered SMU with the Death Penalty because the school was caught cheating multiple times and was put on probation multiple times. SMU in my opinion was also hit hard by the NCAA because they were going to be made an example of. Almost every team in the SWC at that time was paying players. Texas A&M, Texas, and Arkansas were doing the same thing, but you're not going to slap the death penalty on one of those schools because they're bigger than SMU. So the Ponies were made an example of by the NCAA. What the NCAA didn't realize, was the kind of damage the death penalty does to a college team.

The NCAA death penalty basically means a college team is completely shut down. They can't play in any games or recruit. The death penalty hurt SMU so badly, they not only played a single game in 1987 but also in 1988. The after affects of the death penalty on SMU affected that team for twenty years until they hired June Jones as their coach. That could be one of the reasons why we haven't seen hammered by the death penalty since.

'Poney Excess' in my opinion was one of the best 30 for 30 documentaries yet. Unlike "The U" this movie didn't glorify the cheating and the scandals. The director told the complete story and didn't give SMU a pass or make excuses for the school even though his father was a professor there. The director even delved into the newspaper war in Dallas which lead to the SMU scandal breaking. Kris complained about Skip Bayless being featured in the movie. I was more upset that Craig James (An ESPN employee) basically got a pass and wasn't mentioned how exactly he landed at SMU. Other than that though, there really wasn't much to complain about in that film.

This film taught me that today's college scandals are really nothing compared to what happened at SMU in the 1980's. Cam Newton's father basically selling his son to the highest bidder is child's play compared to football players on a payroll at SMU. Could you imagine if this scandal happened today? The Texas Governor was involved. This scandal not only would have been all over ESPN, but also Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. This would have been the biggest scandal ever if it happened now until another scandal broke.

Thank God this scandal took place in the 1980's and thank God ESPN decided to run 'Poney Excess' as the last 30 for 30 documentary.