Arkansas became the first SEC coaching job to open in the 2025 carousel cycle, and while there will certainly be a few interested candidates, one name is drawing a lot of early chatter.

SMU's Rhett Lashlee is 31-14 with a 21-3 conference record in his four seasons in Dallas, and he has successfully guided the Mustangs through their move to the power conference ranks as the team reached the league title game and the College Football Playoff in its first season in the ACC.

Lashlee, a former quarterback at Arkansas who has SEC experience after spending four years as Gus Malzahn's offensive coordinator at Auburn, has seen his name pop up quite a bit in rumors surrounding the Razorbacks' job. According to On3's Pete Nakos, he's the preferred choice among a faction of key Arkansas boosters.

Lashlee was asked about the speculation during his press conference on Tuesday, and while he emphasized he is not currently thinking about potential openings, he didn't exactly deny interest in the job at his alma mater.

“I don’t stand anywhere on speculation and hypotheticals,” Lashlee said. “I’m happy, I've got a great job. I think when your name gets linked to jobs, it means your team has done well, the program has done well. So, it’s a compliment to what our staff and administration and players have built over the last 3+ years. A lot of times there's obvious connections. When it’s your alma mater, it’s easy to link names.

“I haven’t given it any thought because there hasn’t been anything to give thought to... Until there’s things to talk about, you don’t talk about them. Internally, we haven’t said a word about it because in my world, nothing’s going on. Outside of the world, there’s a lot of that speculation. That’s part of our business. It’s probably not going anywhere.”

For a program that's new to the Power Four ranks, SMU enjoys fairly significant booster support and has quite a few resources at its disposal. It's a legitimate question whether Lashlee would view Arkansas, a historically bottom-half SEC program, as an upgrade.

But as we've seen countless times in college football, the call to come home is often too strong for coaches to ignore. This could be a situation to monitor as the season (and the search in Fayetteville) progresses.

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This article originally appeared on College Sports Wire: SMU's Rhett Lashlee directly addresses Arkansas speculation

Reporting by Tyler Nettuno, College Sports Wire / College Sports Wire

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