For the 104th time, the SMU and TCU football teams will meet on Saturday in the Battle for the Iron Skillet. But it is the last time for the foreseeable future.
That gives a game that already has plenty of hostility a little more. Instead of bragging rights for a year, it's bragging rights for years.
SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee is trying to keep all of that noise on the outside as his team looks to win its second straight and for the fourth time in the last six meetings.
"None of the stuff around this game affects this team. That's got to be the mindset," Lashlee said. "There's a lot of emotion around rivalry games when it comes to fan bases, but we can't play emotional. We've got to play passionately, and we've got to play with intensity and toughness and together."
When SMU won in 2019, it snapped a seven-game losing streak to TCU. That was the longest winning streak for the Horned Frogs in the series. It was part of SMU's most successful season, at the time, since the 1980s.
When TCU won in 2022, it snapped SMU's two-game winning streak, the first time the Mustangs won back-to-back games in the series since the early 1990s. And the Horned Frogs went on to have a historic year.
"You know, '23, it didn't really propel anybody," Lashlee said. "They won and then didn't have the year they wanted to have. We didn't win but didn't lose again until the bowl game. Last year, obviously, it helped springboard us again. It can be a swing game, but there's also evidence that it doesn't necessarily happen that way. Both teams want to win, both fan bases want to win. Rivalries are what made our sport awesome."
While the Mustangs are trying to not get caught up in the outside noise, they do know what this game means to the fans. And what the game could mean for the team heading into a bye week before ACC play starts.
"Mainly for the fans," senior safety Ahmaad Moses said. "We can go 1-11, but if you get the TCU game, at least some part of the SMU program is happy. … This game is not going to make or break our season, but it is going to be a big factor in it."
But rivalries are going away.
SMU and TCU have not been in the same conference since 2000, when they were in the WAC following the breakup of the Southwest Conference. Still, the series continued.
"This will be the 104th time. It means something," Lashlee said. "There's probably a couple dozen, maybe, rivalries in the country that have played over 100 times, and this is one of them, so I think it's important."
Only twice have the two not met since being in different conferences, in 2006 and again in 2020. That will change after this season with no future games on the schedule.
"They've chosen not to play anymore. We'll see what the future holds, but we're playing this Saturday," Lashlee said. "Can't really get caught up in that right now if you're (us). We've just got to focus on playing good football on Saturday, playing better football on Saturday than we did this past Saturday to give ourselves a chance to win a big game."
In theory, the series could resume before the younger players are done playing college football. But for seniors like tight end RJ Maryland, it is for sure their last game in the rivalry.
And there's no love lost.
"This is my last ride, so if I can do anything I can to keep it here, I'm going to do it," Maryland said. " …It's going to be loud, and it's going to be a tough environment. Those fans, they don't like us, and we don't like them back. That's just how it's going to be."
