As we look back on the SMU football season, a lot can be said outside the final showing of the team. Take away the Boca Raton Bowl loss, and you have the program's 10-win team since 1984, the first official bowl-eligible team under second-year coach Sonny Dykes and the first team since to finish the season winning every home game since 1968.

"The crazy thing about it, it's not going to stop when we leave," running back Xavier Jones said. "This is standard now. Expect SMU to keep on going up."

You also have an SMU team that was nationally ranked for the first time since 1986 and undefeated through its first eight games. And let's not forget that the prosperity of this team was fueled by transfers -- and the success of the transfer portal was something questioned early by many outside of the locker room.

Perhaps most importantly, the 2019 season was the first step for the SMU program to lose the stigma of being that team. The national audience -- those outside the Hilltop -- know SMU as the only NCAA football team to be hit with the modern death penalty.