A crowd of 70,000 watched as Lance McIlhenny led the Mustangs with two touchdown passes and along with the mistakes of the Cougars, helped SMU take a 34–12 victory.

[9] October 21, 1989: SMU was playing in its first season back from the death penalty while Houston was coming off of a strong 9–3 campaign in 1988.

However, Houston was hit with a two year bowl ban starting in 1989 for recruiting violations, so the Cougars were out for blood during the regular season.

Eventual Heisman Trophy winner Andre Ware would throw for 517 yards, only playing in the first half.

[10] November 19, 2011: In Houston's last home conference game of the season, they were selected to host College GameDay by ESPN in what would be the first ever appearance on the program for both schools.

[13] October 22, 2016: The 2016 Houston team was picked by many experts to obtain the Group of Five's New Year's Six bowl bid, having only one close loss to Navy earlier in the season.

19 in the AP Poll and undefeated at 7–0, while Houston had a 6–1 record, with their only loss coming in their first game of the season against Texas Tech.

Houston reclaimed the lead early in the 4th quarter when Tune threw a short touchdown pass to KeSean Carter.

November 5, 2022: In what would prove to be their last match-up as members of The American, Houston entered the season as favorites to win the conference, but had slumped to a 5–3 record while SMU were 4–4 under new coach Rhett Lashlee.

[18] March 13, 1965: In the teams' second meeting, Houston and SMU met to play in the 1965 NCAA Regional third place Game.

March 12, 1983: After beating the Mustangs twice in the regular season, Houston would meet SMU once again in the 1983 Southwest Conference tournament semifinals.

March 3, 1985: With the days of Phi Slama Jama behind them, the tables turned in favor of SMU with the Mustangs beating No.

12 SMU seemed to be heading in the right direction under the leadership of coach Larry Brown, visiting the Cougars with a 19–1 record on the season and having already beaten them earlier in the year.