SMU is wearing the jerseys because the school wants to brand itself as "Dallas' football team"SMU
SMU's new "Dallas" jerseys are "just one piece of a larger branding project by the football program to better connect" the school to the city, according to Sam Blum of the DALLAS MORNING NEWS. After wearing the jerseys on Saturday at home against North Texas, it is "possible the team wears the uniforms again for road games at TCU and Houston." SMU coach Sonny Dykes said the school wants to brand itself as "Dallas' football team." He said, "We started to talk about it as we put the branding campaign together. We thought this makes a lot of sense and fits into our vision for our football program in terms of trying to win over some of the neutral folks in Dallas." On the uniforms, the "Dallas" was in script as an "homage to the retro Dallas Texans logo, which was also in script." For the helmets, SMU "wanted to put the team logo in the middle of the City of Dallas logo." In order to do that, they "had to call City of Dallas government to get permission, and promise that they wouldn't look to profit off of its usage." SMU Chief of Staff Anthony Crespino said, "We wanted to implement that with the pony, just to show the unity that (Dykes) wants to bring to Dallas. With Dallas and SMU kind of being one. Just being Dallas' college football team" (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 9/11).
