Armed By Arnett: The Roots Of State’s 3-3-5 Defense
September 13, 2022 | Football, Joel Coleman
Bulldogs are the beneficiary of Arnett’s aggressive style.
STARKVILLE – For just a second, rewind time.
Take yourself back to the late 1990s. Mississippi State's defense is wreaking havoc. The Bulldogs are an opposing offensive coordinator's nightmare. Names like Pig Prather, Fred Smoot and Ashley Cooper are making big play after big play, and the cowbells are clanging.
It's been said that history repeats itself. Right now, in the present, it's doing just that.
Two decades since the late, great Joe Lee Dunn was orchestrating a State 3-3-5 defense that's legendary, current MSU defensive coordinator Zach Arnett is now in his third season reviving the scheme in Starkville.
But how did Arnett become an adapter of the 3-3-5 and why did State head coach Mike Leach desire such a style when he arrived at MSU in 2020? Both answers largely have the same roots.
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When Leach was the head coach at Texas Tech from 2000 through 2009, his Red Raiders would often face off against New Mexico in the first half of the season; usually the first or second game of the year. Rocky Long – a big proponent of the 3-3-5 – was the head coach of the Lobos at the time.
"They did a tremendously good job running the defense," Leach said. "Even if we put some points on them, they'd still end up in the top three in the country defensively, so I couldn't help but admire that."
Now, Leach had seen the 3-3-5 previously, including in 1997 and 1998 when, as Kentucky's offensive coordinator, Leach had to face Dunn and the Bulldogs.
"I've had a lot of respect for it for years," Leach admits.
Leach's admiration led him to adopt the scheme upon arriving in Starkville, but he had to have the right man calling its shots.
"It's kind of one of those things where you don't just buy a book and have somebody read a few chapters and then run it. You need a guy that kind of grew up in it," Leach said. "There's other guys that grew up in that defense, but they don't have the nerve to call it. You need a guy, one, that knows it and, two, is not afraid to call it."
As it turned out, more than a decade before Leach was looking for someone to run his 3-3-5, Long had a linebacker who was starting to soak in the system and beginning to thrive in it. That player's name was Zach Arnett and – while he certainly didn't know it at the time – he was paving his path to Starkville.
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Arnett grew up in Albuquerque. So, long before he was playing college football in his home state, he was well aware of New Mexico's defensive style.
"But obviously, learning the ins and outs of it and all that, I didn't get my introduction to that until I started playing there," Arnett said.
Arnett having the chance to play for Long is a story unto itself.
"He was a much more sought-after baseball player," Long – now the defensive coordinator at New Mexico – said in a 2020 interview. "He came on a baseball scholarship."
Arnett was a standout catcher at La Cueva High. He hit .477 with 20 home runs and 141 RBI over his prep career and led his team to three state titles.
In a 2005 Albuquerque Journal article, Arnett's high school baseball coach Stan McKeever praised Arnett's play and leadership.
"[Arnett has] really been like the Mike Ditka of La Cueva High School," McKeever said, comparing Arnett to the fiery former NFL head coach. "He's such a heads-up player and he's not afraid to say something to a teammate to get his head on straight.
"He was the leader of our baseball team for at least the last three years, and I'm not sure he wasn't one of the leaders as a freshman."
New Mexico wanted Arnett to bring his toughness and sweet swing to its baseball program and did, but Arnett wanted to play football for the Lobos as well. Long gave Arnett the chance to walk on.
"But if you're a walk-on on the football team, obviously your scholarship, even though it's paid by baseball, is counted at football," Long explained. "So, for us to keep him on the football team, he had to prove to us that he could be a player and eventually a starter, which he did. He became a very important part of our team and team captain and all those sorts of things."
Arnett got a football scholarship. He gave up baseball.
"Which really made the baseball coaches mad," Long said.
Arnett went on to record 200 career tackles at New Mexico. His junior and senior years were especially strong as he racked up 18.5 tackles-for-loss and four sacks combined over the 2007 and 2008 campaigns.
It sure looked like Arnett knew what he was doing in the 3-3-5. Starting in 2011, his understanding of it would get taken to another level when Long became the head coach at San Diego State and turned to his former star linebacker to fill a role as a graduate assistant.
"As a player, you think you know a lot of stuff and you probably know very, very little," Arnett said. "It was probably my GA years and working at San Diego State where I started to really get some in-depth knowledge about [the 3-3-5]."
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Just as Arnett grew as a player under Long, he blossomed as a coach.
"It's not an understatement to say, in my professional life, he's the most influential person there is," Arnett said of Long.
Arnett went from grad assistant to linebackers coach to defensive coordinator over a nine-year span with Long and the Aztecs. He became the coordinator in 2018 and over his last two years at San Diego State, Arnett proved with authority he could orchestrate the 3-3-5 as his defenses finished inside the top-15 nationally in multiple categories over that span including rushing yards allowed per game, rushing yards allowed per carry, yards allowed per play and much more.
After the 2019 season, a certain pirate became the head coach at Mississippi State and needed to fill out his staff. Leach turned to Arnett.
"I'm extremely grateful because he probably could've thrown a rock from campus and found a more qualified person in all reality," Arnett said. "The truth is there's probably a heck of a lot of other candidates who were talked about for the job and for one reason or another didn't get it, and [Leach] got far enough down the list and gave it to me and I wasn't dumb enough to turn down the opportunity. You have a chance to coach in the SEC West and you're a young coach who really is way underqualified for it? Yeah, you don't turn that down. You go ahead and let everyone keep being fooled and take the opportunity and run with it."
Don't let Arnett's self-depreciating humor fool you. His results have continually shown Leach made a home-run hire.
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In 2020, despite taking over a defense that featured an eye-popping 11 first-time starters and dealing with an abundance of inexperience, Arnett's group finished fifth in the Southeastern Conference in total defense – six spots higher than the year prior to his arrival.
Then, in 2021, the Bulldogs were among the country's top-25 defenses in the regular season, including the SEC's third-best and the nation's 12th-best rushing defense.
It's been more of the same this season. Mississippi State will take the field against LSU Saturday on the heels of a pair of strong showings.
The Bulldogs allowed just 29 first-half yards in the season-opening win over Memphis. Last week against Arizona, MSU gave up only 241 total yards following the Wildcats' first drive.
It seems indisputable Leach found the right man to rekindle the 3-3-5 flame at MSU.
Arnett fits Leach and the Bulldogs, and the 3-3-5 fits Arnett.
"I just like the philosophy and the mentality behind it," Arnett said. "It has an aggressive nature to it. Then, if you're a tinkerer and you like the Xs and Os and playing with pieces and trying to do a bunch of stuff – which I'd throw myself in that category trying to design new blitzes or stunts or whatever – it's really friendly for a guy like that because it gives you a lot of pieces to play with."