New SMU athletic director Damon Evans is taking charge of a department that is experiencing momentum it hasn’t had in many years. The Mustangs exceeded expectations in their first year in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The football team went undefeated in the ACC regular season and qualified for the first expanded 12-team playoff. The men’s basketball team came close to earning an NCAA Tournament bid, but ended up in the NIT, making it to the second round.
Evans is stepping in after Rick Hart, who guided SMU’s return to success during his 13 years as AD. Now, Evans, who previously served as the top leader at Maryland for seven years and also ran Georgia’s athletic department, will take SMU to the next level.
“The powers that be here went big-game hunting,” Evans said during his introductory press conference Thursday. “And what I mean by that, they had, some might say, the audacity to go out and say, ‘We need to find a power conference, and do everything we can to be in that conference.’ And I saw that.”
The Mustangs spent nearly 30 years without a stable conference home after the Southwest Conference dissolved in 1996. This happened when four Texas schools joined the Big 12. A decade earlier, SMU received the NCAA’s “death penalty” for recruiting violations, the only school ever to face such a penalty.
SMU celebrated its invitation to the ACC in 2023, and the football team reached the College Football Playoff the following year, despite losing 34-31 to Clemson in the conference championship. SMU was then knocked out of the playoff by Penn State in the first round, losing 38-10.
Men’s basketball coach Andy Enfield said that SMU joining the ACC was a major factor in his decision to leave Southern California and join the Mustangs. SMU finished tied for fourth in the ACC but missed out on the NCAA Tournament, while North Carolina secured a spot.
Evans left Maryland just as both the men’s and women’s basketball teams made it to the Sweet 16 this week. Before the football program found success under Sonny Dykes and Rhett Lashlee, men’s basketball was SMU’s standout sport under Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown a decade ago.
Damon Evans shakes hands with Jay Hartzell and R. Gerald Turner“I believe in the word ‘and,’ that you can be good in basketball and football and tennis and track,” Evans said. “I don’t believe in ‘or,’ that you can have one or the other. So my goal and my drive has always been, we’re all in this.”
Evans, a former receiver at Georgia in the early 1990s, ran Georgia’s athletic department from 2004 to 2010. He became an associate AD at Maryland in 2014 before taking the lead role four years later.
“I think I bring a lot of experience having been in the Big Ten and the SEC and now in the ACC, having worked at two power four conferences, I want to take that knowledge and impart that here,” Evans said. “But believe me when I say this. I don’t have all the answers. And I know that working with them here, we will find them.”
SMU, a private school located near downtown Dallas, has invested over $250 million in athletic facilities since 2013. This includes renovations to Moody Coliseum, the basketball arena, and a new end-zone complex that opened during the last football season.
Hart’s departure coincides with the announcement that R. Gerald Turner, who served as SMU’s president for 30 years, is stepping down. Turner shared this news in August, and Jay Hartzell, currently president of the University of Texas, will take over at SMU on June 1.
“When I saw the news that he was coming to SMU, I said, ‘Wow they’re really going after someone special,’” Evans said, addressing Hartzell directly. “I look forward to partnering with you and working with you.”
