ACC Championship: Rhett Lashlee gives initial thoughts on SMU vs. Clemson
SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee spoke with the media after his team beat Cal on Saturday, sharing some initial thoughts on ACC Championship opponent, Clemson.
Lashlee always looked up to legendary coaches Bobby Bowden and Mark Richt. Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney reminds Lashlee of that pair of longtime coaches with the “gold standard” he’s turned Clemson into.
“You’re going to play Clemson, you’re going to play Miami, either way, you’re playing a really good football team,” Lashlee told reporters. “Coach Swinney, Clemson’s become the gold standard of our league over the last decade, decade and a half. I really respect how he runs his program. I grew up wanting to be like Bobby Bowden and Mark Richt.
“I really appreciated how they ran their program at Florida State, just the way that they won big, but the way they did it. I think Dabo’s kind of that coach of the last decade or two in this era. I have a lot of respect for how they do things.”
This season’s been fun for Lashlee to watch SMU ascend from fun dark horse to ACC Championship participant, and a College Football Playoff contender. Clemson’s had the playoff committee’s attention for years with its past National Championships.
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“To go back-to-back years with eleven wins, and to do what we did in the ACC. You hear all the things in the playoffs and all that about brand bias, and they’re real, that’s fine,” Lashlee said. “Those schools and those brands have earned that. Like, it may be frustrating if you’re on the wrong end of that, but Dabo Swinney and Clemson, what they’ve done over the last decade and a half have earned the brand bias, right? They just have. We haven’t. We’re the new guys.
“It is fun to see us have a year that kind of gets the attention of the country, where they go, ‘Okay, whoa. SMU might be a program that can build a program that is sustainable year in, year out, is talked about as a Top 25 program, and someone that could compete to win their conference and compete for the playoff either year in, year out, or frequently.’ That’s what we want to build here. In order to do that, there’s steps to that process.”
As SMU’s readying for its matchup with the Tigers, Lashlee added one final thought.
“Excited to get the opportunity to share the field with them,” Lashlee said.
His SMU Mustangs will do just that and he hopes more on Saturday at 7 p.m. CT on ABC in the ACC Championship.
