Red & Blue Scrimmage to kick off 2009 Mustang football season

DALLAS (SMU) — The SMU football team will wrap up spring football with a final open practice on Saturday, April 25, at 1 p.m. inside Gerald J. Ford Stadium on the SMU campus. The Mustangs will run approximately 40 plays as part of their annual Red & Blue Scrimmage.

Throughout the week, SMU students have been seeing advertising posters with the face of Doak Walker, an SMU football alum and Heisman Trophy winner, encouraging them to attend the annual Scrimmage. The posters and the marketing plan for the game and surrounding festivities has been the work of the SMU Cox School of Business Honors Marketing Practicum class (Read their blog.) in cooperation with the SMU Athletic Department. 

The SMU Cox School of Business Honors Marketing Practicum class is teaming up with SMU Athletics to promote SMU Football's Red and Blue Scrimmage on April 25. Read their blog.

Beginning at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Doak Walker Plaza, there will be free food, giveaways, contests and a live performance by The Big Red Rooster sponsored by the W Hotel of Dallas.  Food will be provided by Pluckers, Pokey O’s, Olivella’s and Celebrity Bakery. Fantastic prizes and giveaways include a Dallas Mavericks signed basketball, a signed Dirk Nowitzki jersey, an Impeccable Pig necklace and a $100 gift certificate to Kenichi.

While The Boulevard will remain closed, SMU Athletics will conduct a public "garage" sale prior to the game in the concourse of Gerald J. Ford Stadium. The sale will start at noon and wrap up at the conclusion of the scrimmage. Items for sale will be from SMU's various athletic teams and will include things such as jerseys, polos, t-shirts, shorts, jackets and shoes. Accepted methods of payment will be cash or check only.

Mustang fans are invited to take part in a post-game barbeque at the south end of the stadium. The barbeque will commence around 2:15 p.m. For more information on the barbeque and to RSVP, call Debbie Mulvenna at 214-768-3315 or e-mail her at dmulvenna@smu.edu.

The scrimmage is free to students, alumni, and the surrounding community and showcases the SMU football team’s talent and plays for the upcoming season.

The Honors Marketing  Practicum class functions much like a marketing agency with different departments. It is their semester project to plan and execute a campaign and event for the Annual Red and Blue Scrimmage in hopes of creating awareness and increasing attendance.

“We want to pack the stadium full of fans to show how much spirit and encouragement SMU has,” says Practicum Class member, Lauren Wright, “This is a chance to start something big here on campus that lasts for years after we have graduated. We can come back to attend the scrimmage and see how much it has grown.”

The class is using an advertising campaign focused around Doak Walker. It celebrates the SMU football team’s past successes and recognizes Doak Walker Plaza as a special venue for the pre-scrimmage event.

Doak Walker attended Southern Methodist University (SMU), where he played running back, defensive back, and place kicker. He also threw and caught passes, punted, and returned kicks. He was an All-American and in 1948 won the Heisman Trophy as the best college football player in the nation. Walker's impact on SMU and football in the Dallas area led to Cotton Bowl being referred to as "The House That Doak Built." Walker was also a member of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity and lettered on the SMU basketball and baseball teams. In 2007, he was ranked #4 on ESPN's list of the top 25 players in college football history.  He is immortalized by the annual Doak Walker Award, given to the best running back in college football, and by a statue placed between Gerald Ford Stadium and SMU's Dedman Center for Lifetime Sports.

 The SMU Football program has been strong since its inception in 1915.  The new Ford Stadium was constructed in 1997 and was finished in 2000 seating 32,000 fans.  SMU is the only Division 1 athletic program in Dallas, Texas and has been ranked as the top school in its conference 10 out of the last 11 years in the Director’s Cup overall athletic ranking. 

For more information about SMU, please visit www.smu.edu, or to find more information about the SMU Football program, please visit www.smumustangs.com.

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