UNIVERSITY PARK, Texas — Sonny Dykes may already have one foot in Dallas and another Lubbock these days.

And who can really blame him? It’s where his father became a legend. It’s where he went to high school. It’s also where he coached as a young man nearly 20 years ago.

But I’m not here to tell you that Dykes should take the Texas Tech job. It’s been well documented the perils of taking your career to Lubbock. Following family is difficult.

Instead, what I am here to tell you is, if Dykes really does have one foot out the door in Dallas, he’s right about one thing: He should leave SMU at the end of this season.

Dykes has reached the top end in Dallas. His stock will never be higher. If he wants a Power Five job — and the window is closing quicker than you think for a 51-year-old head coach — this would be the time to take it.

Now, let’s reason this out.

Dykes has won 24 games in the last two and a half years. He has commandeered the transfer portal like few others have, gaining over 20 starters and turning SMU from a middling AAC team into a top 20 program three years in a row.

He has dotted his resume with appearances on College GameDay, a 10-win season and even brought a four-star quarterback to SMU that signed with a small, private school over LSU and Alabama.

Dykes hasn’t been perfect, no. He hasn’t won a conference championship and his team has been terrible in November and December. But, hey, he has been pretty good in turning SMU around in a relatively short rebuild. If he can get to 11 wins this season — a big if — Dykes will have been the first coach to truly pull SMU out of the doldrums of The Death Penalty.

But in all of this, the question becomes is the success actually sustainable? Will SMU be a consistent top 20 team in the future, even if Dykes does stay?

Conference realignment, at this point, would probably say no. At the very best it is a big question mark.

If SMU stays in American — and by all indications it will — it would be firmly on the outside looking in of college football relevance. Once Houston, Cincinnati and UCF all leave, SMU is looking forward to a future of playing North Texas, the University of Alabama Birmingham and Charlotte.

Not great. Even if SMU does win the conference every year, it’s not exactly moving the needle.

Dykes’ pitch right now to recruits, and transfers, is to come in, play right away and have a chance to sneak into national saliency at the end of the season.

Even under current circumstance that is sometimes a tough sell. SMU is 7-0 and clawing to be No. 19 in the country. Imagine how difficult that would be in a couple of years when SMU is undefeated and still unranked because it plays in a conference where the best teams are Tulsa, East Carolina and Memphis — if the Tigers don’t get a life raft out of this sinking ship.

Of course, a lot can happen in the next couple of years. The College Football Playoff could expand, making SMU a more relevant team even if it plays in a bad conference. SMU could also make a move to the Pac-12, changing its fortunes.

But those are hypotheticals. And if they do happen, they are years down the road. Right now, the reality is SMU remains in the American. And Dykes could be looking out at that conference landscape and see SMU toiling in obscurity.

The recruits would dry up. The wins could go along with it. And Dykes shot at a Power Five job could be gone too.

In college football timing is everything. Dykes needs to leave when his stock is the highest. It will give him the most leverage at the Power Five level.

And with leverage comes the ability, to a certain degree, for Dykes to find the right fit for his next stop. That will be of the utmost importance for the head coach. This next Power Five job he takes will likely be his last shot to make it at that level. His last Power Five stint at Cal ended in a disaster. You don’t get more than two chances, especially not at Dykes’ age.

Who knows if Texas Tech is that fit. I probably don’t think so. But if it all goes horribly, Tech can still double his salary. Dykes can make more in three losing seasons there than he can with six undefeated ones at SMU.

But this isn’t a column about Texas Tech. All this is to say, Dykes is at the top end at SMU.

If he wants a final crack at the Power Five, this is the time to take it.