Super Bowl LVII on Sunday will feature two former Mustang football players with quarterback Shane Buechele suiting up for the Kansas City Chiefs while Grant Calcaterra plays tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles. SMU is one of just 13 schools to have players on both teams in this year’s NFL showdown.

Both helped SMU reinvent its program as the “team of Dallas” and acted as shining examples of the Mustang’s early success in the era of the transfer portal.

Buechele signed with the Chiefs as an undrafted free agent in 2021 and is currently in his second season with the team. In 2019, he led SMU to the team’s best season finish since 1982 and was a finalist for the Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award given to the best player in the state of Texas.

Calcaterra, who transferred to SMU from The University of Oklahoma, has been a bit more active in his NFL career playing in 15 games in his rookie year including two starts. He was selected in the sixth round of the 2022 NFL Draft after his lone season on the Hilltop in which he was named second-team All-American Athletic Conference.

When Buechele transferred to SMU from the University of Texas at Austin, it signaled the start of the Mustangs going after players looking to come back home to the Dallas area to finish their college football careers. Other prominent players such as Danny Gray, Reggie Roberson Jr. and Tanner Mordecai followed Buechele’s footsteps, and so far, this transfer strategy has paid dividends for the Mustangs as of late.

The impact of players such as Buechele and Calcaterra is still a focal point of the team’s identity as SMU currently boasts the seventh-ranked transfer portal class in the country for the upcoming season, according to 247 Sports.

The field is not the only place where SMU plays a role this Sunday. Clark Hunt, who graduated from the Cox School of Business in 1987, serves as CEO, chairman and part-owner of the Chiefs. Under his leadership, Kansas City has made five consecutive AFC Championship appearances and won Super Bowl LIV.