So does everyone agree that if we had a normal coaching search Arnett isn't the hire?

[Tbonewannabe]

If we are looking for a coach then Arnett's resume probably doesn't even get him an interview for a SEC head coaching job.

I seem to remember people saying that Rocky Long was the actual DC and people were worried if he was ready for a SEC job. He did well but he realistically needed to go to a G5 and cut his teeth.

He looks very overwhelmed which is probably why it looks like he isn't doing anything on the sideline.

[RocketDawg]

Probably should have kept him as interim head coach and did a normal search after the bowl game. If I recall though, we didn't even have an AD at the time, and I suppose Keenum et al thought we needed a permanent HC for recruiting purposes.

[Turfdawg67]

Of course. He was put into a unique position because he was going to keep this veteran team together. Mission accomplished, I guess.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Well we did. If he would have beaten a terrible SC team and beat a not good Auburn team, maybe some of those recruits will stay to play in maroon.

[parabrave]

Probably should have kept him as interim head coach and did a normal search after the bowl game. If I recall though, we didn't even have an AD at the time, and I suppose Keenum et al thought we needed a permanent HC for recruiting purposes.

It should've happened like this and only because of the bad timing of Leachs death/ I still wonder if he was hired as a interm coach and after the season he would step down and a real HC would be named..

[coachnorm]

What makes anyone think the situation would be any different if CML was still head coach? Will Rogers is still the same. The garbage scheme of check downs, swing passes, and mesh patterns has been figured out. The defense recruiting with no future draft picks is the responsibility of the head coach. Does CML have any culpability for our current status? I admit that I have no concrete answers for our current status. Who actually caused this backward evolution or are some going to say this was not a backward evolution of the program and something that happened on a spur of the moment?

[CaptainObvious]

I bet you $50 to NIL that Mike Leach had nothing to do with recruiting defensive players. He turned that entire side over to the Defensive Staff. The crappy defense lies at the feet on 2 guys Zach Arnett and Whoever Coach 34?s friend is on staff.

[coachnorm]

The name of the game is talent acquisition especially in recent years. Are you saying that the CEO of Mississippi State Football is not responsible for talent acquisition and subordinates are?

[Todd4State]

What makes anyone think the situation would be any different if CML was still head coach? Will Rogers is still the same. The garbage scheme of check downs, swing passes, and mesh patterns has been figured out. The defense recruiting with no future draft picks is the responsibility of the head coach. Does CML have any culpability for our current status? I admit that I have no concrete answers for our current status. Who actually caused this backward evolution or are some going to say this was not a backward evolution of the program and something that happened on a spur of the moment?

When we lost Leach we also lost Arnett the DC.

We have better receivers than we did last year- but we don't utilize them like we did before. Will would still struggle to push the ball down the field because that is who he is. But he also never struggled putting up points on lesser defenses in the Air Raid and in year four of a system and with better talent surrounding him there is no reason to think that we wouldn't continue to have success- last year we played 6 or 7 top 35 defenses and so far this year we have played 1 and yet our PPG and total offense numbers are worse. We wouldn't have as many miscommunication issues that we're seeing and having players literally running the wrong direction or into each other which we are seeing too much.

On the other side of the ball we have an inexperienced DC which is a huge mistake to go along with a relatively inexperienced OC. Arnett is much better than Brock and if that side of the ball had his full attention there is no question in my mind that we would be better there.

The only side of the ball that is performing the best is the one we touched the least- and that's with a freshman kicker and punter.

We miss Leach's ability to manage the team. You may not agree with how he did it but at least he was consistent and everyone knew which direction to pull in. Right now I feel like we have several people with different opinions trying to get their two cents in and a coach trying to keep people happy while at the same time overthinking everything.

With Leach I feel confident we beat South Carolina and Auburn at least. And the Arkansas game doesn't make Football Sickos game of the week where we are declared the Iowa of the SEC. Beyond that- the LSU game would have been much closer if not a win and Alabama probably would have been more competitive too.

We may not have the most talented team in MSU history- but we do have a team and program that has shown that with the proper leadership we can be way more successful than we are now.

[Todd4State]

If we are looking for a coach then Arnett's resume probably doesn't even get him an interview for a SEC head coaching job.

I seem to remember people saying that Rocky Long was the actual DC and people were worried if he was ready for a SEC job. He did well but he realistically needed to go to a G5 and cut his teeth.

He looks very overwhelmed which is probably why it looks like he isn't doing anything on the sideline.

If Leach had resigned or was fired there is no way we in a normal situation would have hired Arnett. Which is part of the reason why I didn't like the hire in the first place. It was very rushed. There is no way we would have been excited about hiring the DC with the 7th best defense in the SEC as HC normally.

We should have accelerated the AD hire. Get through the bowl game. Done a National Search- and remember we hired Leach in January after the Music City Bowl so yes we would have had time to get someone good.

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Keenum not hiring an AD and letting Bracky run the show was the biggest mistake.

[HancockCountyDog]

I had a bear tell me yesterday that he is our Matt Luke. An interim coach promoted to HC who wasn't ready for the position, but you can't blame him for taking the job.

My biggest issue right now with Arnett is that he appears to be going JUCO heavy to try and fix next year's roster which I think is a big mistake. We will struggle next year. Even more than this year. I'd rather do it with HS kids or transfer players that have more than 1 year of eligibility.

[Coach34]

I bet you $50 to NIL that Mike Leach had nothing to do with recruiting defensive players. He turned that entire side over to the Defensive Staff. The crappy defense lies at the feet on 2 guys Zach Arnett and Whoever Coach 34?s friend is on staff.

Leach had total control of who was recruited. Why you ask? Because he allowed Emmerick and Dudek to dictate to the coaching staff who could be recruited. Allllll of our current "talent" with nobody projected to be drafted- is on Leach

[TrapGame]

If we had an AD in place at the time Arnett is not made head coach.

[Coach34]

The name of the game is talent acquisition especially in recent years. Are you saying that the CEO of Mississippi State Football is not responsible for talent acquisition and subordinates are?

Of course he is- but that doesnt support the narrative soooooo

[KB21]

The Leach Haters are out in full force trying to protect their chosen one who has brought Mississippi State back to the paleolithic period of football.

[Prediction? Pain.]

If we are looking for a coach then Arnett's resume probably doesn't even get him an interview for a SEC head coaching job.

I seem to remember people saying that Rocky Long was the actual DC and people were worried if he was ready for a SEC job. He did well but he realistically needed to go to a G5 and cut his teeth.

He looks very overwhelmed which is probably why it looks like he isn't doing anything on the sideline.

I had a bear tell me yesterday that he is our Matt Luke. An interim coach promoted to HC who wasn't ready for the position, but you can't blame him for taking the job.

Agreed that he wouldn't be among the likely candidates in a normal scenario. Three years as an SEC DC, two years as a G5 DC, and four years as an G5 LB coach. (And in the two DC years at San Diego St., I think he was more co-DC with Rocky Long than a solo DC. Not knocking him. That would just make sense under the circumstances.) He did well as a DC, instantly improving Shoop's horrific 2019 unit by leaps and bounds and then gradually improving in '21 and '22. But it's still pretty thin. By comparison, Mullen had been a QB whisperer under Meyer for eight years and an SEC OC for four years when we hired him. And in his two last years at UF, he fielded one of the Top 5 offenses in the nation. Moorhead's resume was also longer, with 10 years experience as an OC, AHC, or position coach at FBS schools (seven of those were as an OC) and four really good years as a head coach in FCS.

Matt Luke may be a little bit of a better comparison, but even he had more experience. 15 years as a P5 OL coach, and in nine of those years he was a Co-OC.

The Matt Luke comparison is interesting for another reason, though -- his interim tag. They forced out Freeze in the summer of 2017, placing them in a craptastic position with the season only six weeks away. They named Luke the interim HC. They didn't remove the interim tag until after the end of the season, when he went 6 - 6 with a team that had finished 5 - 7 the year before. (They were 110th nationally (and tied for last in the SEC) in returning production, too, so that's fairly impressive to essentially hold serve.) I guess Arnett's situation was a little different since he had a bowl game, post-season recruiting, and spring ball to deal with after taking over. Maybe that justified not giving him the "interim" tag. I don't know. But his pay and contract terms sure seem interim-ish, don't they.

[Goldendawg]

Agreed that he wouldn't be among the likely candidates in a normal scenario. Three years as an SEC DC, two years as a G5 DC, and four years as an G5 LB coach. (And in the two DC years at San Diego St., I think he was more co-DC with Rocky Long than a solo DC. Not knocking him. That would just make sense under the circumstances.) He did well as a DC, instantly improving Shoop's horrific 2019 unit by leaps and bounds and then gradually improving in '21 and '22. But it's still pretty thin. By comparison, Mullen had been a QB whisperer under Meyer for eight years and an SEC OC for four years when we hired him. And in his two last years at UF, he fielded one of the Top 5 offenses in the nation. Moorhead's resume was also longer, with 10 years experience as an OC, AHC, or position coach at FBS schools (seven of those were as an OC) and four really good years as a head coach in FCS.

Matt Luke may be a little bit of a better comparison, but even he had more experience. 15 years as a P5 OL coach, and in nine of those years he was a Co-OC.

The Matt Luke comparison is interesting for another reason, though -- his interim tag. They forced out Freeze in the summer of 2017, placing them in a craptastic position with the season only six weeks away. They named Luke the interim HC. They didn't remove the interim tag until after the end of the season, when he went 6 - 6 with a team that had finished 5 - 7 the year before. (They were 110th nationally (and tied for last in the SEC) in returning production, too, so that's fairly impressive to essentially hold serve.) I guess Arnett's situation was a little different since he had a bowl game, post-season recruiting, and spring ball to deal with after taking over. Maybe that justified not giving him the "interim" tag. I don't know. But his pay and contract terms sure seem interim-ish, don't they.

We have not had a single game, win or lose, including the bowl game when we looked good under "HC" CZA. This includes the Leach staff at the Bowl before most of them left or were run off.

[Homedawg]

The Leach Haters are out in full force trying to protect their chosen one who has brought Mississippi State back to the paleolithic period of football.

I'm not a leach hater but the part about the recruiting above is true. And much more.

[HancockCountyDog]

I'm not a leach hater but the part about the recruiting above is true. And much more.

What is very frustrating is that both things can be true and for some reason few posters want to admit that. Right now things are just really bad.

Anyone who doesn't look at our current roster and thinks that our recruiting the last few years has been sh!t has an agenda. We will lose close to 25 seniors who either start or play significant snaps for our team this year and most importantly these will be losses on both the OL and DL where we have zero experience coming back. We also don't have the damn bodies to even run practice in the spring beyond one starting OL, its really bad. This is primarily Leach's fault. It just is. Everyone knew that next year was going to really suck, we (hand raised) just assumed that this year would be worth it.

THe other true thing is that I agree that a Leach-run offense or something close to it would be no worse than 5-3 right now. The decision by this staff to install a brand new offense, and let's be clear - it is a brand new offense that doesn't tailor to the strengths of the current offensive roster was downright criminal. It was beyond stupid. The posters that predicted we were changing offenses were right, and the ones that said we were "tweaking" Leach's system were wrong. These are just facts.

As someone who didn't love the AR, i was hoping for tweaks, because I knew we had a QB who was very system based and that I knew that he could lead us to wins if we ran the system that he has proven he can win in. I also figured that with the SEC being a trainwreck (it is) that we could improve slightly on offense and take a tick down on defense and still win 8-9 games this year maybe more. Instead, we have Will Rogers running read-option and we can't score against Arkansas or AU.

I think the reason most people want Arnett fired because it feels like the MSU football program is riding on the Titanic. Our current team is senior laden and we don't have talented young players to look forward to playing, our current coach is clearly learning on the job and is one false start penalty away from being 3-5 and we are now recruiting jucos because we just need the bodies, and overall our recruiting this year is pretty average outside of a few WR's (I really like Stonka). So when everything is this bad, the easiest thing to do is change head coaches even though I'm not sure a new head coach fixes anything. That being said, with the way roster sets up for next year, i'm not sure anyone other than Deion can change next year's team into something I want to watch.