Report: TCU indefinitely 'pausing' longtime series vs. SMU after 2025 contest

A great rivalry in college football will be taking a break beginning in the 2026 season. However, conference realignment will not be the reason. Instead, it’s the TCU Horned Frogs reportedly looking to move away from a local rivalry with SMU.

According to Brett McMurphy of the Action Network, TCU will be “pausing” the Iron Skillet Rivalry against SMU. The final matchup, for now, will take place in 2025 but there is no agreement to continue the series moving forward. With McMurphy’s report, it sounds like the Horned Frogs will not be discussing it either.

“TCU indefinitely “pausing” its series with SMU after the 2025 game, sources told @ActionNetworkHQ,” McMurphy said. “The schools, located 35 miles apart, first met in 1915. This year’s game at TCU will be the 102nd meeting b/w the Horned Frogs & Mustangs in the Iron Skillet Rivalry.”

The last time SMU and TCU did not play each other is actually pretty recent. COVID-19 messed up the 2020 matchup, a game scheduled in Dallas. TCU wound up not playing a nonconference game that season and just faced nine Big 12 opponents.

You have to go back to the late 1980s in order to find the last multi-year stretch where the Dallas-Fort Worth rivals did not play for the Iron Skillet. There have been 101 matchups between the two in total and once the 2025 game blows by, the number will sit at 104 for quite some time.

TCU will waltz into the pause with the series lead, currently sitting at 52-42-7. They will also play host in the 2023 edition of the Battle for the Iron Skillet on Sept. 23

TCU head coach Sonny Dykes has been on both sides of rivalry

If one man should know how important the SMU-TCU rivalry is to those involved, it’s Horned Frogs head coach Sonny Dykes. He has been on both sides and is on a bit of a win streak. After two wins with the Mustangs in 2019 and 2021, Dykes won while wearing purple in 2022.

When Dykes spoke about SMU earlier this summer, he used the College Football Playoff as a reason why TCU would not want to play the game. Dykes also implied the rivalry game is not exactly a big seller for the season ticket holder in Fort Worth.

“When you transition from a 4-team playoff to a 12-team playoff in my opinion, that changes your scheduling dynamic,” Dykes said. “This year, TCU we won two non-conference road games. This year, with Nick Saban going to Austin and beating Texas, Nick Saban won his second non-conference road game as the head coach at Alabama. Let that sink in for a second.

“What does scheduling look like from a non-conference standpoint? It’s really, really important to be smart about the scheduling. You’ve got to do a good job of No. 1, taking care of your season ticket holders. No. 2, making your situation make sense for you when it comes to the end goal. That rivalry’s one of those things that we’ll kind of see how it plays out and how it fits into the whole thing.”