Breaking down which candidate fits best at Mississippi State

The Mississippi State job came open after just one year for coach Zach Arnett, though that didn’t come as a huge surprise given Mike Leach‘s untimely death late last year as the coaching carousel had already mostly settled.

But who might the Bulldogs target?

On3’s Andy Staples offered a handful of options that might be compelling for the program at this point in time.

“This is one where it feels like they’ve got some good Group of Five head coach options, which it’s been hard lately to jump from the Group of Five to an SEC job, to a Big Ten job, because they tend to go for coordinators,” Staples said on the Andy Staples On3 show. “But there’s a couple like Manny Diaz, who’s been their DC a couple times. He’s the DC at Penn State. He’s one I’d look at. Glenn Schumann, the DC at Georgia, if you’re looking for that next Dan Lanning, that’s one I’d look at. But I think there’s a few good Group of Five head coaches. Jon Sumrall at Troy. Rhett Lashlee at SMU. Those are guys you should seriously consider.”

Any of those coaches would be a pretty traditional step up from their current job. Others have suggested Mississippi State might target a Power Five head coach for the position.

Split the difference and you could end up with someone that On3’s JD PicKell really likes for the gig.

“I like Jamey Chadwell,” PicKell told Staples. “Just from a sheer philosophical perspective it feels like you’re in the SEC, you’re playing the Georgias up front, you’re playing the ‘Bamas up front, the LSU historically. It feels like you need to kind of zig where other people are zagging. That spread option offense, I think that could be the answer for them.”

After a moment or two considering that, Staples agreed.

“I like that from a schematic standpoint because you become a team that becomes hard to prepare for, because they use triple-option concepts but they’re spread out and they attack vertically,” Staples said. “It’s actually, like you go back to Tom Osborne in the mid-90s where the triple-action was Nebraska‘s play-action, basically, that’s what Liberty‘s doing right now.”

There’s one potential complication with Jamey Chadwell and a potential Mississippi State hire, though.

“Liberty’s an interesting one because they can pay way more than most schools at that level can pay,” Staples said. “So potentially they could offer him a sweetheart offer that makes it hard, but good SEC jobs don’t open often.”