Zach Arnett’s ride on the coaching carousel has been anything but normal.
Arnett served as MSU’s defensive coordinator from 2020-22, before he was thrown into the head coaching role in 2023 after the death of Mike Leach. He was fired after a 4-6 start to the 2023 season.
After stints at Ole Miss and Florida State, Arnett is right back in Starkville, working for the man who replaced him in Starkville.
“(The hiring may be) a little outside the box for most people,” head coach Jeff Lebby said at SEC Media Days on Thursday. “But for me, it was all about having a guy who lived it, had done it, had called it, has (an) incredible amount of success on that side of the ball.”
Arnett’s prior defenses at Mississippi State were successful. His defenses finished in the top-5 of SEC total defense each season and in 2021 boasted the conference’s third-best rushing defense.
State’s defense last year wasn’t as successful.
The Bulldogs finished second-to-last in the conference in both points allowed and total defense. In the Bulldogs’ seven-point losses to Texas and Tennessee, MSU’s defense allowed 45 and 41 points respectively. Last year’s struggles have lit a new fire in the 2026 defense.
“Knowing the games that we could have won last year, feeling that hurt, feeling that hunger, knowing that… you can’t go back in time,” redshirt junior Kelley Jones said. “The time is now.”
Jones is one of the returning leaders on MSU’s defense that brought in five projected starters through the portal. He started all 13 games last season for the Bulldogs, tallying 34 tackles, 11 pass breakups and two interceptions.
Jones tested the waters of the NFL Draft in the offseason, but is back, and is looking to improve on his tackling and leadership skills. Both are improvements he looks to make under the man that originally recruited him.
“I was really excited, genuinely happy (and) ready to see him,” Jones said of the moment he heard Arnett was coming back to Starkville.
A 3-star prospect from Clarksdale, Mississippi, out of high school, Jones was a true freshman on the team Arnett head coached in 2023. He said Arnett is the “same guy” as the defensive coordinator as he was as a head coach.
“He’s very intentional with the small details and what he’s doing,” Jones said. “He’s hungry, he wants to get after it. No excuses.”
Lebby called Jones’ secondary, the better half of MSU’s defense last season (it ranked 10th in the SEC in passing yards allowed compared to 16th in rushing), the biggest area of improvement on defense this offseason.
MSU brought back senior Issac Smith who started nine games last year, and brought in three transfers who are projected to start in the secondary: Quentin Taylor from Iowa State, Marcus Williams from Rice and Jardin Gilbert from LSU.
“I think guys understood that when they walked in the doors, they’re transferring in with some playing time,” Lebby said. “There were going to be guys that had the ability to go compete, win a job, and that’s where it started. So I do like who we were able to acquire in the portal window, and we’ll see once we put the ball down here in a couple weeks.”
Lebby has experience coaching against an Arnett-led defense. When he was the offensive coordinator at Ole Miss, Lebby went against Arnett in the 2020 Egg Bowl and “did not enjoy going against him.”
When asked if there was anything strange about coaching with the guy whose job he took, Lebby said there are no hard feelings.
“I think Zach is a guy that wants to be a defensive coordinator. Like that’s exactly who he is, and so he’s been an incredible teammate. He’s been a great staff member, and I don’t foresee that change,” Lebby said. “No part of it has been awkward at all.”
Jake is the Mississippi State athletics reporter for The Dispatch.
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