"The two schools, 40 miles apart, were once football royalty, Southwest Conference enemies playing with national championships on the line. Now, after multiple rounds of realignment, after NIL and revenue sharing and a path to the playoff became a priority, a rivalry is playing its final scheduled game. Disdain is not a business model anymore, unfortunately, for fans who long to feel it in their hearts."
"The Horned Frogs and Mustangs first met in 1915, and within 20 years, the 1935 game was known as the "Game of the Century," an SMU win so thrilling that legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice, who rode the train from New York to cover it, considered it perhaps the greatest game ever played in the first 60 years of the sport."
TCU and SMU were once regional and national football powers and developed a heated rivalry beginning in 1915. The 1935 game gained national attention and was hailed as a landmark contest by sportswriters. In 1946 students created an Iron Skillet trophy, modeled after the Little Brown Jug, to curb vandalism and formalize the rivalry. Over decades the original trophy was lost and the tradition faded as both programs struggled. Student governments revived the Iron Skillet in 1993 with a plaque-adorned pan, but subsequent realignment, NIL, revenue sharing and playoff-focused priorities diminished the rivalry into nostalgia as teams and fans moved on.
Read at ESPN.com
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