Romo went on to be a three-time Ohio Valley Conference Offensive Player of the Year from 2000-02, throwing for 7,816 yards and 82 touchdown passes. If I don’t come back better or I haven’t improved, we can have this discussion again.’” I remember after that first year, he goes, ‘Tony, we’re thinking of moving you to tight end.’ I said, ‘Just give me three months.

“He was right, though, because when I came in as a freshman, I was a terrible thrower of the football. “I tell Coach Spoo, when we look back, I was like, ‘Are you really that good at talent evaluation?’” Romo recalled. Romo said Bob Spoo tried to convert him to tight end after his freshman year. Romo’s rise from undrafted small school quarterback to Dallas Cowboys starter might not have happened in his coach at Eastern Illinois had his way.

I’m really happy to represent my university and I’m proud of it. I didn’t have a plan to play professional football. And that’s their opportunity to help themselves and get an education if they don’t play football. “Leaving college, most of these kids don’t have anything. “I know why they held me out because of the death penalty, but I’m proud of my school,” Dickerson said.

I’m honest about it.”ĭickerson is still proud to be an SMU alum and appreciative for the school to helping him and his family get to Las Vegas for the opportunity, even if it’s almost 40 years since he played football in Dallas. “I look at my university because they made us like the black eye of the NCAA. His 2,105 rushing yards in the 1984 season, his second with the Rams, is still the league’s single-season record.ĭickerson was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999 after finishing his 12-year career with 13,259 yards, currently ninth-best in NFL history. We were a bunch of young kids.”īy the time the NCAA punished SMU, Dickerson was already a record-breaking running back in the NFL. People have the tendency to think I had something to do with it. “We had nothing to do with that death penalty,” Dickerson told the AP, referring to himself and “Pony Express” teammate Craig James. Part of that controversy was Dickerson being given a sports car at around the same time he committed to Texas A&M before ultimately switching to SMU.ĭickerson has maintained the car was a gift from his grandmother. The Pro Football Hall of Famer ran for 4,450 yards and 47 touchdowns at SMU, going from a 5-6 team as a freshman to an 11-0-1 club that won the Cotton Bowl his senior year.īut the school’s reputation was tarnished after the NCAA handed down the “death penalty” in 1987 for multiple violations that occurred before Dickerson arrived at SMU, up until 1986. Other inductees included Heisman Trophy winners Carson Palmer and Eric Crouch, former Eastern Illinois quarterback and current CBS analyst Tony Romo, and longtime Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops.

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