Although he didn’t even last a full season, it wasn’t a shock that Mississippi State fired Zach Arnett on Monday. As we reported a week ago, new athletic director Zac Selmon wasn’t happy with the direction of things and wanted his own guy running the football program. Mississippi State obviously isn’t as big a brand as Texas A&M, which fired Jimbo Fisher about 24 hours before the Arnett move, but we think the Bulldogs will have some very good options and might be in a better position: They can just hire a really good football coach, as opposed to needing to get a guy who has to lead them to the national title or bust.
Advertisement
Power 5 head coach to watch
Lance Leipold is a factor in a bunch of the open coaching searches this fall, and we heard Mississippi State would be interested, too. When he arrived in Lawrence, Kansas was the most dismal program in college football, with no more than three wins in a season in the last 11 years, and by his second year on the job, Leipold had the Jayhawks in the top 20. The 59-year-old from Wisconsin won six Division III national titles at Wisconsin-Whitewater and then got Buffalo going and into the Top 25. We suspect if Leipold were willing to leave Kansas, it probably wouldn’t be for another program that sits in the bottom third of its league in resources.
Group of 5 head coaches
Tulane’s Willie Fritz is a proven winner and has done an amazing job not far away at Tulane. He has posted double-digit win seasons at every level of college football, going 97-47 at Central Missouri, 40-15 at Sam Houston and 17-7 at Georgia Southern. Last year, the 63-year-old led the Green Wave to a 12-2 season that included a Cotton Bowl win over USC and a No. 9 finish in the AP Poll. This year, they’re 9-1, giving him a 21-3 record the past two seasons. This would feel like a very safe and good hire.
Troy’s Jon Sumrall may be the hottest name in the Group of 5. The 41-year-old Sumrall has been awesome at Troy. He’s 20-4, including last year’s 12-2 debut and top 20 finish at a place that hadn’t won more than five games in the previous three years. He’s an outstanding recruiter, with a great ability to connect with people and a commanding presence. As mentioned in the Texas A&M coaching search story, we believe the former Ole Miss and Kentucky assistant will be a big-time SEC head coach before too long.
A big thing we’ve heard from coaches who’ve spent time in Starkville is you really need to be different if you want to be successful at Mississippi State. One candidate who might be an ideal fit along those lines is Liberty’s Jamey Chadwell. He has a creative offense, and he has Liberty rolling at 10-0 in his debut season after being hired away from Coastal Carolina. The 45-year-old former East Tennessee State QB is 40-6 in the past four years. He probably should’ve gotten an SEC job a few years ago but was passed over because he and his staff didn’t have Power 5 experience. He is paid really well by Liberty, but we don’t think he could turn down an SEC job. Expect him to get a lot of consideration for this one.
Advertisement
SMU’s Rhett Lashlee has gotten off to a great start taking over for Sonny Dykes; the Mustangs are now 8-2 in his second season. The 40-year-old from Arkansas has a good job in Dallas, but he has strong SEC experience having coached at Arkansas and Auburn, and he’s a good offensive coach.
Familiar faces
Patriots assistant Joe Judge, a former Mississippi State player, is very well thought of inside the Bulldogs community. The 41-year-old has spent the past decade as an NFL coach, including two rough seasons as the Giants’ head coach, going 10-23. Before that, he was a special teams assistant at Alabama for Nick Saban. If he’s interested in coming back to college, we could see him getting in the mix for this vacancy.
The wild-card candidate for Mississippi State would be former Bulldogs head coach Dan Mullen. He went 69-46 in almost a decade there, with three Top 25 finishes before leaving for Florida and fizzling out in Gainesville within four years. Mullen has moved into TV as an analyst for ESPN, and by all accounts he has fit in well there. At 51, would he want to get back into the grind of college coaching?
(Photo: Brian Bishop / USA Today)
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57lGltaWtkaXxzfJFsZmppX2aAcLnIrKqiq6OevbG1jKyrmqyVYrOwu9ObmKWkXZi8oq%2FHoqWgZZOWu6W1w5qrnqtdm7KtsMyapWg%3D