Dec 30, 2019; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Mississippi State Bulldogs mascot entertains fans during the first half against the Louisville Cardinals at Nissan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports
Mississippi State is reportedly adding an offensive line coach to Zach Arnett’s staff.
MSU is expected to hire Mike Schmidt from Syracuse, according to Matt Zenitz of On3.
Arnett and Schmidt were on staff together as assistants at San Diego State from 2011-19. Schmidt played at San Diego State from 2005-08 and then got into coaching as a graduate assistant in 2009, a position he held through 2011 before becoming offensive line coach in 2012. Arnett was a San Diego State GA from 2011-13 before moving up to linebackers coach in 2014 and becoming defensive coordinator in 2018.
Schmidt joined Dino Babers’ Syracuse staff in 2021. Ahead of the 2022 season, Schmidt added run game coordinator to his title with the Orange. As Zenitz’s report notes, the Orange have had an elite ground game running behind Schmidt’s linemen.
On Jan. 6, Mississippi State hired veteran SEC offensive line coach Will Friend to Arnett’s coaching staff. MSU’s announcement for Friend’s hiring noted his position would be named at a later date.
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Definitely putting together a quality staff. Now we'll see how it translates on the field. GTHOM
This guy gets it!
He was a great third baseman, but can he coach the offensive line?
Lol. Nicely done.
Ok, that looks promising. I think I like the direction the hires are pointing. As a long time State fan, I long to se a 1000 yd back. The air raid was great, leach (loving memory) did the job of fixing a quickly deteriorating program. But the few times State has success, they do it bringing physicality on both sides of the ball. Dak helped shows us what we can do if can throw it at the same time. Shame installing a new offense almost always involves growing pains, but if we can run the ball effectively we know Rogers can light up a defense. We still might have that big year next season
Defense will be a top 3 SEC. I think we're still on track for an even better team next year.
It will all come down to the oc. I still remember 1999, first year woods was oc, we won 10 games and would have gone undefeated to Atlanta if our offense had been at least good enough to allow less points scored than our defense(seriously, our offense was directly responsible for more of our opponents points than our defense). Just wasted that defense. That was shifting drastically from a power run game to a spread. I think this transition should be smoother, and our quarterback is much better.