![]() ![]() Ask Arnett about those numbers and you’ll get another self-deprecating answer. 477 with 20 home runs and 121 RBIs in high school. It wasn’t that long ago that Arnett made the bold decision to pass up the opportunity to play college baseball at New Mexico. I was not about ready to pass up that opportunity.” ![]() “There was probably a dozen or so other guys that he would’ve preferred to have, but fortunately, for one reason or another, it got all the way down the list somewhere in the high teens or 20s and it got to me. “I think he wanted Coach Long,” Arnett admitted. Arnett came away convinced that his defensive philosophy was seen as a positive by Leach, though he wasn’t the only potential target who could operate it. He wanted to make sure that Leach would embrace that high-risk nature of the base defense and allow it to complement his 1-of-1, high-volume passing version of the Air Raid offense. Arnett accepted the Syracuse defensive coordinator job to have total control of a defense without his mentor for the first time.īut when Leach came calling roughly 2 weeks later with an opportunity to be his first defensive coordinator at MSU, Arnett was intrigued. 2 scoring defense in FBS, he was finally set to leave the familiar surroundings of Long at San Diego State. Ultimately, Arnett didn’t get the job but he conversed with Leach several times.įollowing a 2019 season in which Arnett led the No. When Leach was at Washington State, he spoke to Arnett about potentially filling a defensive coordinator vacancy. It can scare off offensive-minded head coaches. Rooted in an aggressive blitzing style, “conservative” isn’t a word you’ll hear associated with the 3-3-5. “I haven’t been exposed to anything else,” Arnett said. Arnett learned it as a linebacker on Long’s New Mexico teams from 2005-08 and he mastered it as an assistant at San Diego State from 2011-19. It’s Long who taught him the ways of the 3-3-5 defense, which features 3 defensive linemen, 3 linebackers and 5 defensive backs. Three years as Leach’s defensive coordinator were preceded by 9 working his way up the defensive staff at San Diego State with his former college coach, Rocky Long. “To really only work in 2 places and to now be a head coach, I have guilt over it.” “I feel guilty talking about my coaching history,” Arnett said. He knows that you’re not supposed to become a Power 5 head coach having only coached professionally at 2 programs. Recently hired Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham is the only Power 5 head coach younger than the new head man in Starkville.Īnother thing you could call Arnett? Self-aware. It’s a role that he earned following an in-house promotion in the wake of Leach’s death in December. A self-deprecating, 3-3-5-loving, post-victory Wild Turkey-drinking, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy.Īrnett has plenty of time to learn the cosmetic aspects of being a head coach. He’s a New Mexico native and former New Mexico linebacker who has never seen an episode of the wildly popular New Mexico-based TV show “Breaking Bad.” Unlike his predecessor, the late Mike Leach, Arnett doesn’t possess an affinity for binge-watching shows on Netflix.Ī cliché film junkie? Sure, you can call Arnett that, among other things. He doesn’t have time or patience for TV shows, either. But even if Arnett’s hair didn’t grow out like, as he said, “a Chia Pet,” he maintained that he doesn’t have time for styling (he did admit his preferred non-buzzed look would be reminiscent of Brad Pitt’s in the movie “Fury”). ![]()
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