Another First for SMU

There are a lot of firsts in the ACC this season. The ACC Coach of the Year is in his first year in the conference, with a school in its first year in the ACC. In an ACC first for SMU, Rhett Lashlee won the vote Thursday in a landslide.

SMU is in its first season in the ACC. The Mustangs, along with Cal and Stanford, joined the conference for starting with the 2024-25 academic year. And SMU is doing it for no cut of the conference’s TV revenue. And yet Lashlee has taken the Mustangs to the conference championship game against Clemson on Saturday night in Charlotte, NC.

The SMU Resume

The Mustangs are currently #8 in the College Football Playoff rankings after a perfect 8-0 ACC season. SMU is 11-1 overall. The only blemish on the record is a three-point loss to BYU all the way back in mid-September. The 11-win season is the fourth in school history. The Mustangs also did it in 2023, going unbeaten in their last season in the AAC.

Lashlee is in his third season as the head coach at SMU with a 29-10 overall record in his tenure. He replaced Sonny Dykes in 2022 when Dykes left for the TCU head coaching job. This is his second stint at the Dallas school. He was the offensive coordinator under Dykes for two years in 2018-2019. In 2020 he served as the offensive coordinator at Miami under then-head coach Manny Diaz.

Mustangs by the Numbers

The Mustangs’ current nine-game winning streak is the fourth-longest active streak in the country. It is also tied for the fifth-longest in program history.

The turning point for SMU was a change at quarterback after the BYU loss. Lashlee went with Kevin Jennings, a dual-threat quarterback in place of Preston Stone. SMU is now second in the conference in scoring offense at 39.2 points per game and third in third-down conversion rate at 46.1%.

SMU also has the ACC’s top rushing defense, giving up only 95.8 yards on the ground per game.

The Vote

There are 71 total votes for the ACC post-season honors, with 54 media members and one representative from each of the 17 conference schools. Lashlee got 64 of the 71 votes to come in first place. His old boss at Miami, Duke first-year coach Manny Diaz was second with three votes. Brent Key of Georgia Tech had two votes. Fran Brown of Syracuse and Mario Cristobal of Miami had one vote apiece.