Greg McElroy gives Zach Arnett hire an 'incomplete grade'

As ESPN college football analyst Greg McElroy gives out grades for this year’s coaching hires, he found new Mississippi State head coach Zach Arnett difficult to grade. So, for now, Arnett is getting an incomplete.

The college football world lost a legend when Mike Leach died in December of 2022. Zach Arnett, the Mississippi State defensive coordinator, was quickly named the team’s head coach and he went on to beat Illinois in an emotional ReliaQuest Bowl.

A well-respected defensive coordinator who allowed the program to retain some level of continuity and already has a win seems like a good hire. Still, Greg McElroy thinks that Arnett needs more time before he receives a grade.

“Zach Arnett is an incomplete grade at this point,” Greg McElroy said on Always College Football.

“Thrust into what was a difficult situation, it’s the only situation that Mississippi State could make. Could they have gone out and hired somebody else? Perhaps, but you would have lost what might become a very legit head coach. So, I am not going to grade Zach Arnett as of right now.”

Greg McElroy emphasized that his issue with the Zach Arnett hire doesn’t have anything to do with Arnett, just the situation. It is, after all, an incredibly difficult spot. So, McElroy is waiting before he judges the hire.

“Impossible situation, taking over from Coach Mike Leach, but he’s done a pretty good job, I think, of bringing in his own pieces. Thought he might go Air Raid, decided not to, some of his hires that he brought in,” McElroy said.

“So, we’re gonna kind of leave that one for the time being. We’ll assess it a little more after Spring when we can kind of see exactly what things look like for their program in 2023 because they should have expectations. A lot of guys returning and a lot of talent still on that roster. But, he is going to be left with an incomplete grade.”

Zach Arnett on keeping the recruiting class together

One task that Zach Arnett had early in his tenure was to keep the recruiting class together in the wake of Mike Leach’s passing.

“I think it speaks to the young men we have in our program already. And the young men we were targeting and had committed in the class. There’s a lot of reasons you sign and commit to a football program. Obviously, the football program, your role in it, plays a big part of that. But there are many other things that go into deciding where you commit and where you sign. Obviously, the university itself, the academic programs,” Arnett said.

“Probably more than anything that doesn’t get emphasized enough is the players in the locker room. Typically, your best recruiters are your own players. So, all those young men in our signing class who stayed with us and signed? It’s because they developed relationships with the players in the locker room. When it came down to decision time it was, ‘Hey, I want to be a part of a team with a bunch of guys like myself,’. That’s what exists at Mississippi State. Frankly, our best recruiters were the young men in our locker room.”