theathleticuk
DALLAS On a Sunday afternoon last September, Rhett Lashlee was preparing his SMU team for its ACC opener against Syracuse when a series of odd text messages started coming in from friends and acquaintances back home in Arkansas.
Were thinking about you.
Were really praying for you.
Lashlee wondered what this was about; everything was good with him and his family.
After a few minutes, it hit him: Arkansas had just fired head coach Sam Pittman.
A new coach was needed in Hogville, and the feelers from home had begun.
Advertisement This is how a coaching search unofficially begins.
Lashlee, a former Razorbacks player and assistant coach whose parents still live in Arkansas, was a natural target for The Natural State.
Lashlee and his agent knew this would be the most active coaching carousel in years.
They just didnt expect it to start up quite that early.
Having taken SMU to the College Football Playoff in 2024, Lashlee was going to be highly sought-after if the 2025 season went well not just by Arkansas but by a slew of SEC programs expected to have openings.
The Mustangs won their next three games, including at Clemson.
Then on Oct.
31, Lashlee and SMU agreed to a new contract extension.
One day later, SMU beat No.
10 Miami (Fla.) in overtime, the programs first top-10 win in 43 years.
In the end, Lashlee didnt go home to Arkansas.
In a cycle that saw prestigious jobs open at Florida, LSU, Penn State and Auburn (another place Lashlee had coached), he stayed at SMU, which two years ago had been in a Group of 5 conference.
He also didnt drag it out toward the end of the regular season for maximum leverage.
Lashlees decision, and Curt Cignettis similar announcement two weeks prior to stay at Indiana, signaled that what goes into a college football coachs job decision has changed.
If a coach has a supportive administration and a path to the Playoff, he doesnt have to leave for a so-called bigger job anymore.
Its different than it was three years ago, Lashlee said.
Look at Indiana winning the national title and us making the Playoff.
Theres more parity now, and if universities are willing to invest, you can compete no matter where you are.
It helped that SMU got ahead of the issue.
A month before the season began, athletic director Damon Evans told president Jay Hartzell what to expect from the next coaching carousel.
Both had joined SMU in early 2025, so this would be their first negotiation with Lashlees camp, but they were well-versed in high-dollar contract negotiations.
Evans had come from the Maryland AD job, while Hartzell was very involved in athletics while in one of the most high-profile university president jobs at Texas.
Those two hires had highlighted SMUs rising position in the pecking order.
Advertisement I listed out all the schools (expected to open), Evans said of his talks with Hartzell.
I like being proactive instead of reactive and waiting for people to come after him.
SMU officials convened with the schools famously deep-pocketed boosters, and they began presenting options.
We think youre the right person for us for a very long time, and we want you to hear that from me directly, Hartzell said he told Lashlee.
Not just indirectly.
The extension made Lashlee a top-10 highest paid head coach in college football, which would put him at more than $9 million annually, according to multiple people familiar with Lashlees contract, who were granted anonymity in order to discuss details of a deal that are not public because SMU is a private school.
SMU boosters say theyll never lose the coach over money.
If people knew the numbers in Rhetts deal, they would be shocked, said one person familiar with the deal.
Its not just Lashlees salary.
The number of full-time staff in the program has more than doubled from 23 when he took over to 51 now.
A new end zone facility recently opened.
The all-important roster budget is believed to be near the top of the ACC.
Lashlee said he hasnt lost a two-deep player to the portal that he tried to keep in four years.
Paying players once brought SMU the NCAAs Death Penalty and decades in the wilderness.
Now its what has made SMU a place worth staying.
Its hard to build a program now, Lashlee said.
Man, if youre at a good place and youre happy and can build where you are, why go start somewhere else and go through all that work all over again? You take a new job, you lose the entire roster.
Those resources are all part of what SMU trustee Bill Armstrong had promised.
The oil man and 1982 SMU graduate whose name is on several campus buildings, including the $25 million indoor practice field, led the recruiting efforts to bring Lashlee back after Sonny Dykes left SMU for rival TCU in late 2021.
Lashlee had spent two years as SMUs offensive coordinator under Dykes before taking the same role at Miami.
Advertisement Flying from Miami to Dallas on Armstrongs private plane in late 2021, Armstrong and Lashlee made a pact.
Rhett, Ive just been lied to by Sonny Dykes, Armstrong said he told the coach.
Dont tell me how much you love SMU or how youre never going to leave.
Just win, and Ill make sure I take care of you.
You take care of us, and well take care of you.
Armstrong, who co-chairs the Campaign Steering Committee for Athletics and spearheaded the Vision 2025 fund to hire and retain coaches, is part of the group of billionaire and millionaire alumni who recognized that SMU needed to improve its athletic standing during the recent rounds of conference realignment.
The school got an ACC invitation in 2023 in part because it was willing to forgo nine years of media rights payments from the league, an unprecedented sacrifice.
But within a week of the announcement, the school had raised $100 million to help offset it.
Theres money here.
Lots of it.
At the perfect time.
Bidding wars (for players) are not a game you want to stay in, but you want to be competitive and know the going rate, Armstrong said.
We are in the game, so Rhett doesnt have to call us every time and say, Do we have the money for this guy? Its just there for him.
The football program made the CFP.
The mens basketball team reached the NCAA Tournament First Four this year.
Other sports are doing well.
Billionaire board of trustees chair David Miller told The Athletic in 2024 that applications for enrollment in the school jumped 40 percent after the ACC move.
We have the alignment, the resources, the commitment to say we dont want to just be the school that made a jump and a nice story, Lashlee said.
We want to compete on the national stage again and win national championships.
Lashlee has nothing negative to say about his alma mater or other jobs.
Arkansas plays in a deeper financial sandbox of the SEC, competing with many schools that spend more on football.
The Hogs havent won a conference title since 1989.
At SMU, Lashlee has a clear path to the CFP and the opportunity to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond.
Advertisement He had other personal reasons to stay at SMU, too.
His oldest kids are in high school.
Theyve lived in 10 different homes.
The family didnt really want to move again.
Its part of the reason Lashlee signed that deal in October instead of dragging it out to November for Arkansas or other SEC jobs that opened.
The Razorbacks hired Memphis Ryan Silverfield in late November.
Two things can be true at once, Lashlee said.
You can love your alma mater, love your home state and you can be really happy where you are.
Thats the truth for us.
I cant help people that say you used that to make more money.
No, thats not what we wanted to do.
Were happy here.
Lets not go through these exercises and string people along.
Lets be done.
SMU nearly made a second consecutive Playoff appearance last season.
Cals game-winning touchdown in the final minute of the regular-season finale kept the Mustangs out of the ACC championship game.
They enter 2026 projected to be one of the leagues top teams.
Lashlee is 31-10 over the last three years and 14-2 in ACC play, with the losses by a total of four points.
This all doesnt mean Lashlee will stay at SMU forever.
No coach wants to promise that.
But a coaching cycle that saw Lane Kiffin leave Playoff-bound Ole Miss for LSU also saw Lashlee and Cignetti stay at SMU and Indiana, two decisions that wouldve been unthinkable just a few years ago.
What makes for a good job in college football has changed dramatically in just a few years, even when it comes to the SEC.
As another season begins and hot seats start to warm, fewer coaches may want to leave good situations for the unknown.
You can compete if youre willing to invest in the resources to be great in this current era, Lashlee said.
But if you dont, you wont.