297-Win College Football Coach Predicted to Accept ACC Vacancy

A 297-win college football coach has been predicted to take an ACC head coaching vacancy at the end of the 2026 season.

Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik (2) reacts near LSU head coach Brian Kelly on the sidelines after getting a first down | Ken Ruinard / USA Today Network South Carolina / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The 2025-2026 college football coaching carousel featured unprecedented amounts of movement in the Power Four ranks. For the majority of the regular season and about a month into the postseason, more than 15 programs made head coaching changes.

While the chaos from the last head coaching carousel should usher in a quieter carousel next season, several Power Four programs are still bubbling with discontent over their current head coaches. A handful of these programs are near the middle and bottom of the ACC, such as Boston College, North Carolina, Florida State and Clemson.

28 writers from The Athletic compiled a list of way-too-early predictions for the 2026 college football season. Eric Single predicted that one ACC school looking to get rid of its head coach will hire former Notre Dame and LSU head coach Brian Kelly as its next head coach.

Kelly had worked as a head coach for 35 consecutive seasons before LSU parted ways with him in October of 2025. His first head coaching job was at Grand Valley State in 1991, a job he held for 14 seasons and won a pair of NCAA Division II National Championships before ascending to Division I.

Central Michigan gave Kelly his first shot at the FBS level in 2004. A three-year upward trajectory with the Chippewas catapulted him into the Cincinnati head coaching job in 2007. The Bearcats were 34-6 in three years under Kelly, a run that featured a 12-0 regular season in 2009.

Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly (left) watches the replay with an official during the second quarter against Virginia Tech | Reinhold Matay-Imagn Images

Notre Dame hired Kelly away from Cincinnati in the 2010 offseason. In Kelly's 12 seasons in South Bend, the Fighting Irish won 10 or more games in seven years, made an appearance in a BCS National Championship and made appearances in two different College Football Playoffs.

Kelly left Notre Dame in the 2022 offseason to become the head coach at LSU. The Tigers won 10 games in each of Kelly's first two seasons on the job and boasted a Heisman Trophy winner in Jayden Daniels, but questionable defensive play hindered LSU from reaching the College Football Playoff.

Among other things, regressions from 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025 made LSU turn in a new direction for the leader of its football program.

The good news for Kelly if he were to take an ACC opening is that the conference has few national championship contenders entering 2026. Clemson and Florida State have both lost much of their power from the last decade, weakening the conference as a whole.

Miami is coming off a season where it made the College Football National Championship game, but the Hurricanes are not a well-established power, as they have only seen 10 or more wins in three of the past 20 seasons.

LSU Tigers head coach Brian Kelly looks on against the South Carolina Gamecocks | Stephen Lew-Imagn Images