If predicting the future in college football was ever easy, 2025 suggested that it’s getting harder. Virtually no one foresaw the rise of Indiana or the firing of James Franklin to name a couple of the season’s most surprising stories. So looking ahead five years takes some courage, to say the least.
But The Athletic‘s Ralph D. Russo undertook the task and he forsees a significant change at Clemson. Dabo Swinney has been the boss since mid-2008 for the Tigers, but as he looks forward to 2030, Russo sees another head coach at the helm– provided that Clemson can nab him from his current employer.
The next Clemson boss?
SMU’s Rhett Lashlee is the coach that Russo sees helming the Clemson program in 2030. Russo terms it “a complicated time” to assess both Swinney and Lashlee, but terms him “a perfect fit” although acknowledging “a very real question about whether Clemson would be a clear upgrade from SMU for him.”
Lashlee’s resume
The 42-year old Lashlee is 38-16 after four seasons at SMU. He led the Mustangs to the first 12-team Playoff field in 2024 and had consecutive 8-0 conference runs, first in the AAC in 2023 and then in the ACC in 2024.
Given the Mustangs’ solid standing within the ACC, it is a fair question whether Lashlee would be making an upgrade in making the move to Clemson.
Between 2013 and 2020, Swinney led Clemson to seven top 10 finishes in eight seasons. That run included national titles in 2016 and 2018. But since 2021, Swinney and the Tigers have been on a downward slide…