Beats me, but below are some possible theories.
1. SMU has taken notice of TCU's success in getting Fort Worth and other Tarrant County area people behind their team. This was not the case decades ago, when a stockyards worker (or other 'regular guy') in Fort Worth viewed TCU as a bunch of rich snobs that he did not want to associate with in any way. SMU is promoting itself as Dallas' team for college football. To mimic TCU's success, they have to consistently win and frequently appear in the top 25. So basically, it's a marketing gimic to get Dallas folks with no ties to SMU to support the team. They're trying hard to get the Dallas waiters, waitresses, Wal-Mart workers, carpenters, electricians, cops, school teachers, and short order cooks cheering for SMU.
This is the most likely reason, so Occam's Razor...
2. Much of the sports world still remembers the SMU death penalty. The name "SMU" is toxic in the world of sports. They're turning over a new leaf and labeling themselves "Dallas" instead of SMU. "Dallas" has a mostly positive image nationwide with some negatives in there. It's been 55 years or so since the Kennedy assassination, and most people only know "R.L. Thornton" as the name of a freeway, not the arch-segregationist mayor of Dallas who was allegedly involved at a high level in a nefarious fraternal organization.
3. It's an effort to distance the university and the sports program from anything Methodist, after the Methodist Church publicly affirmed their traditional biblical stance on gay marriage earlier this year. This assumes the PC types run the show at SMU, which they may or may not. But remember, many faculty members and students had fits when the GW Bush library and research center was announced, so this explanation is not out of the realm of possibility.
United Methodists Vote to Keep Traditional Marriage StanceClick to expand...