Ron Meyer, Who Coached S.M.U. to a Football Title, Dies at 76

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Ron Meyer, a college and professional football coach who guided Southern Methodist University to the 1981 Southwest Conference championship but left soon after while the team was on probation for recruiting violations, some of which he was accused of, died on Tuesday in Austin, Tex. He was 76.

His daughter Kathryn Markey said the cause was an aortic aneurysm.

Meyer later coached the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts, but it was at S.M.U. that he achieved his greatest renown.

The Mustangs were a lesser light in a conference that included Texas, Texas A&M and Baylor when Meyer was hired in 1976, after three winning seasons coaching the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His brash personality was well suited to the oil-rich and sports-mad Dallas market, whose Cowboys had won two Super Bowls.

“I like to try to do the unexpected — go against the norm,” he said on the day he was hired. “I like to throw the ball around and have fun. We will run a pro-style attack. It will be exciting.”

Boasting of his ability to recruit without cheating, Meyer focused on finding players in Texas. He flew on private jets to interview high school players and spread his name around by sticking his business card — and a $100 bill — on bulletin boards in high schools.

He broke through in 1979, signing the running backs Eric Dickerson and Craig James to form the school’s so-called Pony Express backfield. Dickerson, who would have a Hall of Fame pro career, had committed to attend Texas A&M (and denied receiving a gold Trans Am as an inducement to go to there) but changed his mind.

“He bought the dream that I sold,” Meyer said in the ESPN documentary “Pony Excess” (2010).

S.M.U. finished with an 8-4 record in 1980. But after the season, the N.C.A.A. cited 29 recruiting violations by the football program, including four by Meyer. He was accused of letting potential recruits believe that they could sell complimentary season tickets, but the university said it later cleared him of the allegation. The Mustangs were placed on probation for two years and were barred from playing in bowl games or televising their games in 1981.

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“Professionally, it’s the low point of my 18-year career,” Meyer told The Associated Press. “I’ve had disappointing Saturdays and overcome them.” And, he said, “I’ll overcome this.”

He did — and so did S.M.U. With its 10-1 record, the Mustangs won the conference championship. Dickerson rushed for 1,428 yards. James ran for 1,147. But when the season ended, Meyer left for the then-lowly Patriots, fulfilling his dream to coach in the National Football League.

Late in a snowy game between the Patriots and the Miami Dolphins in 1982 at Schaefer Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., Meyer called a timeout and summoned the snowplow operator to clear a path behind the line of scrimmage for the Patriots’ John Smith to kick a field goal. The Miami coach, Don Shula, declared the move unsportsmanlike — and said he wanted to throttle Meyer — but the move, though unusual, was legal. Smith’s 33-yard field goal was good, and the Patriots won, 3-0.

Meyer said afterward that the plowing “wasn’t an attempt to cheat anybody.”

Although some players chafed at his strict rules, Meyer turned the Patriots around quickly. In the season before he took over, they were 2-14. But in the strike-shortened 1982 season, they were 5-4 and made the playoffs. (They lost to Miami.)

“Winning cures cancer,” he told The Miami News after his first season in New England. “What the hell, that’s basically the bottom line.”

But in 1984, halfway through the season — after Meyer fired Rod Rust, the team’s popular defensive coordinator, without consulting his bosses — Meyer himself was fired and replaced by Raymond Berry, the Hall of Fame wide receiver.

Meyer won immediately at his next stop, Indianapolis. He succeeded Rod Dowhower in 1986 when the Colts were 0-13 and led them as they won the final three games of the season. After guiding them to a 9-6 record in 1987 and to the playoffs (where they lost, to Cleveland), he was named the American Football Conference coach of the year. But he was dismissed in midseason in 1991, when the Colts were 0-5.

Meyer’s departure from S.M.U. and move to the N.F.L. saved him from being swept up in subsequent scandals at the university. Finding that the Mustangs’ program under Meyer’s successor, Bobby Collins, had made improper payments to players, the N.C.A.A. imposed its so-called death penalty, barring S.M.U. from playing football in 1987 and placing it on probation through 1990.

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Ronald Shaw Meyer was born on Feb. 17, 1941, in Westerville, Ohio. His father, George, was a tradesman, and his mother, the former Mary Harsha, was a schoolteacher.

He was a quarterback and defensive back at Purdue and later a graduate assistant on the football staff before being hired as head coach at Penn High School in Mishawaka, Ind.

Returning to Purdue, he was an assistant coach there from 1965 to 1970 and then worked for the Cowboys as a scout for two years.

At his next stop, U.N.L.V., he had a 27-8 record and was named N.C.A.A. Division II coach of the year in 1974.

In addition to Ms. Markey, he is survived by his wife, the former Cynthia Osborne; another daughter, Elizabeth Petersen; two sons, Ron Jr. and Ralph; eight grandchildren; his sisters, Trish and Karen Sue Meyer; and his brother, Victor.

Meyer coached twice more after leaving the Colts: with the Las Vegas Posse, a Canadian Football League franchise, in 1994, and then in 2001 with the Chicago Enforcers of the XFL, a league formed by NBC and the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment).

At the time, he said he hoped that the XFL, which would last only one season, would be a steppingstone for him to the N.F.L.

“It rekindles the fire, so to speak,” he told the Scripps-Howard News Service. “It was never my idea to leave the sideline. It was the idea of a few people called the owners.”