After Mississippi State fired head coach Zach Arnett on Monday, rampant speculation immediately mounted about who might replace him.
One very popular name in many a coaching circle will be Liberty’s Jamey Chadwell, formerly of Coastal Carolina.
Chadwell has the Flames at 9-0, and he’s expected to land a bigger job if he wants it during this year’s college coaching cycle.
Well, Mississippi State fans started churning the rumor mill when a viral tweet started circulating that seemed to hint Chadwell was in Starkville, Mississippi, on Monday night.
The image going around showed one of Chadwell’s social media posts with a Starkville location tag on the bottom of it.
Someone has to teach Jamey Chadwell how to move in silence 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/nc3U7HGDBP
— CFBTalkDaily (@CFBTalkDaily) November 14, 2023
Here’s the actual post below with no location tag present.
See everyone on Wednesday https://t.co/suPTFa5suL
— Jamey Chadwell (@CoachChadwell) November 13, 2023
Now, this wouldn’t make much sense to be somehow related to the Bulldogs very new coaching search, as Mississippi State just shared news of Arnett’s firing on Monday morning, and the post in question from Chadwell was sent out on Monday afternoon.
That means that Chadwell would’ve had to been invited to visit with Mississippi State officials well before word of Arnett’s firing broke.
The simple logistics of Mississippi State firing Arnett on Monday morning, arranging a flight to get Chadwell from Virginia to Mississippi at a moment’s notice and have him arrive in Starkville by Monday afternoon for a meeting just don’t work out.
Also, it’s more than likely a virtual call would be set up between Mississippi State and Chadwell this soon after the Bulldogs fired Arnett. There isn’t much use in having him fly out spontaneously on a Monday for a hiring that wouldn’t get done until December at the earliest.
Bud Elliott of 247Sports cast continued doubt on this viral image being anything but a hoax likely concocted on a message board somewhere.
While I assume most of y'all are smart enough to know that the Jamey Chadwell Tweet was photoshopped, let's have an annual reminder:
Coaches do not go to other campuses to interview, and especially not during the season. That's message board stuff and always false.
— Bud Elliott (@BudElliott3) November 14, 2023
Also, the spacing between the featured image in Chadwell’s original post and the Twitter analytics don’t really line up in the likely doctored image with how much normal spacing there usually is between those two features.
Take a look at these two posts again and see the difference.
— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) November 14, 2023
See everyone on Wednesday https://t.co/suPTFa5suL
— Jamey Chadwell (@CoachChadwell) November 13, 2023
Chadwell may very well be a candidate for the Mississippi State job when it’s all said and done, but the simple logistics of the situation and the pervasive nature of doctored images going viral on social media make the odds of him actually being in Starkville on Monday a bit ludicrous.
Plus, Twitter — also known as X — has done away with retweets, calling them reposts instead, giving more credit to the image being doctored.
We’ll see if Chadwell eventually makes a trip to Mississippi this year, which would most likely happen after both the Mississippi State and Liberty football seasons end.
