Sonny Dykes is already in rare company. The last SMU coach who took over his chair and wasn’t asked to rebuild a troubled program was Bobby Collins.

In Year 1, he won a national title. Granted, he was fired five years later after the program suffered its infamous death penalty, but since then, each of the program’s six coaches took over with to-do lists miles long and a roster in relative shambles.

That is not what Dykes took over. He’s taken over a program with a two-year starter at quarterback, a 1,000-yard rusher at running back and a roster that Chad Morris took three seasons to rebuild. He revived it from arguably the nation’s worst FBS team in 2014 to a bowl game in 2017, earning a move to the SEC from Arkansas.

The last SMU coach to leave for a bigger job was Ron Meyer, who parlayed a 10-1 season in 1981 and a claimed national title into becoming the head coach of the New England Patriots.

Suffice to say, the task ahead for Dykes is far different than what his predecessors encountered.

“I was really, really happy with the culture Chad built here. The kids work hard, they like each other, they’re unselfish, they handle their business off the field,” Dykes said. “There’s some things we have to improve, but the kids know how to work. They want to work, they want to be pushed. They want to be coached. It’s been a seamless transition. It speaks to Chad’s culture and our staff and our ability to build relationships.”

First on the list for Dykes was establishing more physicality for a team that ranked 101st nationally in run defense. During spring practice, Dykes estimates his team participated in 300 live snaps in 11-on-11 team drills, complete with tackling to the ground. By the end of the 15 practices in the spring, zero players on the roster had injuries that will affect them come fall.

“Still have miles to go. We’re not a physical football team by any stretch of the imagination, but we’re making progress toward that,” Dykes said. “We felt like we had to do it for that reason. You don’t want to put guys in harm’s way, but we felt like we had to.”

The Mustangs lost receivers Courtland Sutton and Trey Quinn, as well as defensive lineman Justin Lawler, but quarterback Ben Hicks and a trio of running backs who combined for 2,186 yards in 2017 return. Defensively, SMU returns five of last year’s seven top tacklers, including linebacker Kyran Mitchell, who equaled Lawler’s 15.5 tackles for loss.

Dykes brought Northern Illinois defensive coordinator Kevin Kane to Dallas and brought UConn offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee, who spent a decade as Auburn coach Gus Malzahn’s right hand man, to run the offense and infuse his running game sensibilities with Dykes’ Air Raid expertise.

And thus far, Dykes’ simple, straightforward style in dealing with players has resonated with his new roster.

“It’s different when you’ve got a guy who’s always high-energy and drinking Red Bulls to a guy that’s laid back. He expects work and he’s very blunt. He’s not as energetic, but he keeps it simple and short and straight to the point,” cornerback Jordan Wyatt said.

Dykes won’t have the burden of lifting a program out of a smoldering crater, but he’ll bear the burden none of his post-death penalty predecessors endured in the early years of their tenure: expectations.

Now, he’ll try and meet them.

“There were times last year we had our opponents where we wanted, and we couldn’t finish the job. And we didn’t finish the season the way we wanted,” Wyatt said of the Mustangs’ 1-4 finish. “We just tell the guys remember the taste you had in your mouth last year. This time, finish.”