Zac Selmon shares when Mississippi State decided to fire Zach Arnett

Following Mississippi State‘s loss to Texas A&M, the school fired head football coach Zach Arnett. That came before he finished his first full season as the head coach of the Bulldogs.

The timing seemed strange to many people. However, athletic director Zac Selmon explained that it was part of a season-long process.

“In this role, you’re constantly looking at the health of a sport program,” Selmon said. “Throughout the season you want to see progression and progression in certain areas. I don’t think we met the standard on the field.”

In his first full season as the head coach at Mississippi State, Arnett put together a 4-6 record. That included losing his final three games as the Bulldogs’ head coach by a combined score of 102-26.

“As far as point of decision, after discussion with Dr. Keenum on Sunday afternoon, it was pretty clear that this was a decision we needed to make to solidify our path forward into the future.”

Unfortunately, for Arnett, this was a very difficult situation from the start. He inherited the job at Mississippi State after head coach Mike Leach died unexpectedly. At the time, Arnett had been the defensive coordinator and was seen as one of the best in the SEC.

However, living up to Leach’s legacy and trying to adapt from his Air Raid offense was incredibly difficult and, clearly, Mississippi State felt like he was unable to live up to that standard.

Lane Kiffin admits he was surprised to see Zach Arnett be fired so quickly

Rival head coach Lane Kiffin shared some thoughts after Zach Arnett was fired. He noted that he felt the firing was quick and that it was indicative of where the coaching industry currently stands.

“Yeah, it does. I mean, it’s not like it used to be. Used to be you had time to build things and you had years to sign classes and see them develop before people made a decision. So, that’s obviously not what’s going on,” Kiffin said.

“To be let go 10 games into your first season when you got hired late, like Zach, really I don’t know how you do that that fast. I don’t know how the expectation is to judge you that fast about the job that you did. Unfortunately, it’s kind of the thing to fire people fast. To me it’s kind of the grass is always greener, so you know, it is what it is.”