Zac Selmon lists what he is looking for in Mississippi State's next head coach

Mississippi State will have their third head coach in as many seasons next fall. Now, as the Bulldogs look to begin another coaching search, Zac Selmon has highlighted what exactly they’re looking for in a candidate to take the position next.

Selmon noted several of the qualities that they’re looking for in Starkville during his press conference on Monday. He started by prefacing that he wasn’t going to list anything that would suggest that they’re not considering all their options going into this process.

“You always go into a search open-minded,” said Selmon. “I don’t want to say it has got to be an offensive person, a defensive person, has to be a sitting head coach.”

However, from there, Selmon described winning, culture, recruiting, and development as areas that he’d like to see a candidate has excelled in in order to consider them for the opportunity.

“I think what you do look for is you look for winning qualities, somebody that has got winning trait. Somebody that knows what winning looks like at the highest level, both schematically and programatically. You know when you’ve got winning DNA. So I don’t want to pigeonhole where we’re at. But you clearly want someone that can build culture,” Selmon said. “Culture changes in today’s landscape. You want somebody that, from a schematic standpoint, knows the game. Competing in this league? You’re competing agains the tip of the spear and that excites me. That excites everybody, I think, to have that. So somebody that knows the game.”

“Somebody, clearly, that can recruit, recruiting in such a changing landscape – somebody that has that,” continued Selmon. “Somebody that understands how to develop talent. For us, when we recruit young men? One, we recruit them for life. We also recruit them knowing that we have a clear pathway to the National Football League and we don’t shy away from that.”

The tragic loss of Mike Leach set Mississippi State on this unexpected path back in December. After three seasons at the helm, his passing left the mantle to Zach Arnett who, in 11 appearances, did not meet the expectations for the Bulldogs or show signs of setting them on the right path for their future.

With a season to still wrap up, many names will pop up when it comes to candidates for Mississippi State. However, those standards that Selmon named are what he and the Bulldogs will be looking for from their next leader.

“We want to have somebody that has all those principles, all those ingredients to come in here and lead our program,” Selmon said.