New SMU AD Damon Evans will try to build on momentum program hasn’t seen in decades

DALLAS (AP) — New SMU athletic director Damon Evans is taking over a department enjoying momentum it hasn’t seen in decades after the Mustangs exceeded expectations in their first year in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The football team didn’t lose an ACC regular-season game and qualified for the first expanded, 12-team playoff. The men’s basketball team flirted with an NCAA Tournament bid before settling for the NIT and reaching the second round.

Evans is taking over for Rick Hart, who led SMU’s conference renaissance late in his 13-year tenure as AD. Now it’s Evans’ turn after seven years in the top job at Maryland and a previous stint running Georgia’s athletic department.

“The powers that be here went big-game hunting,” Evans said at his introductory news 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 almost 30 years in conference purgatory when the Southwest Conference disbanded in 1996 after four Texas schools were part of the formation of the Big 12. A decade before that, SMU was the first, and still only, school to get the NCAA’s so-called death penalty over recruiting violations.

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The Mustangs celebrated an invitation to the ACC in 2023, then qualified for the CFP a year later despite a 34-31 loss to Clemson in the conference championship game. SMU lost to Penn State 38-10 in the first round of the playoff.

Men’s basketball coach Andy Enfield said SMU’s entry into the ACC was one of the biggest reasons he chose to leave Southern California to join the Mustangs. They finished in a three-way for fourth, missing out on the tournament along with Wake Forest while North Carolina got in.

Evans leaves Maryland just as the men’s and women’s basketball teams qualified for the Sweet 16 this week. Before the SMU football program got going under former coach Sonny Dykes and his successor, Rhett Lashlee, men’s basketball was the showcase sport on the Hilltop under Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown a decade ago.

“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 was a receiver at Georgia in the early 1990s before eventually running the athletic department at his alma mater from 2004-10. He was an associate AD at Maryland in 2014 before ascending to the top job 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 near downtown Dallas, has invested more than $250 million in athletic facilities since 2013, including renovating and updating Moody Coliseum, its basketball arena, and an end-zone complex that opened this past football season.

Hart’s departure comes at the same time that R. Gerald Turner is stepping down after 30 years as president of SMU. Turner announced his decision in August. Jay Hartzell will take over as SMU’s leader on June 1 after serving as president of the University of Texas.

“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.”

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