Welp, the Zach Arnett era in Syracuse is over before he even signed a contract. Reports say Arnett is spurning SU for the SEC (can’t really blame him) and Mississippi State.
Arnett, the former coach of a top 10 defense at San Diego State, and his intriguing 3-3-5 scheme are joining Mike Leach, who just took the job as the Bulldogs head coach.
Syracuse announced the Arnett hire on twitter just 11 days ago, which begs the question: why did they not get a piece of paper in front of this man? How had he not signed a contract yet? Perhaps the fact that he lives on the other side of the country didn’t speed this process up, but it seems pretty inexcusable. I mean it’s not like this news came out 2 days ago. We’ve known about this for essentially two weeks.
If the reports are true, that’s really tough. On one hand it proves Dino found quite the hire, but that means nothing now. Syracuse has to look elsewhere and hopefully find a new DC sooner rather than later.
The Arnett thing will now go down as a big “what if?” He was a slam dunk hire that was the rare breed where you really couldn’t find anyone saying anything negative about it anywhere. It almost felt too good and it turned out that was the case.
My hope is this doesn’t make Syracuse settle on someone in house now, given the timing. The right move, and the necessary is still going outside the program to fix this problem and likely bringing in a new scheme.
At the end of the day, good for Arnett. Even with Orange tinted glasses on, you can’t deny It’s objectively a better opportunity that likely pays more for him as well. Plus, it’s hard to be too mad at him if he didn’t sign a contract. Just not sure why he hadn’t after 11 days.
