Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss hire former Mississippi State coach Zach Arnett as analyst

Ole Miss hired former Mississippi State head coach Zach Arnett to the staff, according to OM Spirit’s Zach Berry.

According to Berry, Arnett will serve as analyst on the Ole Miss staff. He was with Mississippi State since 2020 and coached at San Diego State prior to coming to the SEC.

Arnett took over as Bulldogs head coach after the passing of Mike Leach. He went 5-6 overall before the school elected to make a change.

Now, he’ll work under Lane Kiffin and remain in the SEC.

Arnett coached one game in 2022 following Leach’s passing, winning the ReliaQuest Bowl. The Bulldogs finished No. 20 in the AP Poll.

However, he went 4-6 through 10 games the following season and Mississippi State fired him with two games left.

Arnett began his coaching career in 2011 with San Diego State as a graduate assistant. After three seasons in the role, he moved to linebackers coach in 2014.

In 2018, Arnett became the defensive coordinator on top of his position coach duties. Then in 2020, he was hired by Mississippi State.

Kiffin, who’s bringing in Arnett this season, was pretty surprised at the firing last season.

“Yeah, it does,” Kiffin said. “I mean, it’s not like it used to be. Used to be you had time to build things and you had years to sign classes and see them develop before people made a decision. So, that’s obviously not what’s going on.

“To be let go 10 games into your first season when you got hired late, like Zach, really I don’t know how you do that that fast. I don’t know how the expectation is to judge you that fast about the job that you did. Unfortunately, it’s kind of the thing to fire people fast. To me it’s kind of the grass is always greener, so you know, it is what it is.”

Kiffin does know what it’s like to be in Zach Arnett’s shoes. He’s been fired by jobs in both the college and NFL level. So, it does seemed like he had real empathy for Arnett in that situation.