The timing of Leach's passing was awful. Cohen had just left so we did not have an AD. He had just hired Freeze and Freeze was poaching our recruits. Keenum panicked and named Arnett the permanent coach to save the recruiting class.
In hindsight, a proper coaching search would have likely landed an Air Raid disciple that could have leveraged Will Rogers. Arnett destroyed our program in one season. Lebby isn't the guy that can fix it, although I don't think you can fire him until after year 3 because of the schedule. We are truly looking at 0-8 again next year, which will be 20 consecutive SEC losses. The record is 23. The schedule flips in 2026 so it depends on the order of our schedule whether we will hit that or not. If we start with Alabama, South Carolina and LSU - we'll probably set a new record. If we get Kentucky, Vanderbilt or Auburn in the first three, maybe we won't.
The post-2026 hire will be the most important in Mississippi State history. Need Keenum and Selmon out of the picture by then.
Remember the Croom era? This is going to be worse:
State lost 9 consecutive SEC games from 2002-03, won 1, lost their next 9, won 2 in a row in 2004, then dropped 10 consecutive — the final 3 league games of 2004 and the first 7 in 2005. 3-28. We are at 0-12 right now and 0-20 is very probable.
