Most of the talk about the Ole Miss football coaching staff these days seems to center on the back-and-forth between the Rebels and Lane Kiffin's new LSU regime.
Enter Butch Jones.
Arkansas State's head coach is plucking away Kody Schexnayder from his special teams analyst role at Ole Miss to become the Red Wolves' new special teams coordinator.
It's a strong hire for Jones and another significant step in the career of Schexnayder, who takes over a coordinator role just a few years removed from his playing days in the Southeastern Conference at Mississippi State.
Previously working as an analyst at Arkansas State, Schexnayder has his background at Mississippi State, the previous A-State work and most recently Ole Miss under the well-regarded Jake Schoonover, who's been heralded as one of the sport's best special teams coordinators and a potential future head coach.
Jones secured the 110th win of his college coaching career last month when his Arkansas State team capped its dramatic 2025 turnaround with a win in the XBox Bowl to close the campaign 7-6.
The Red Wolves, having to face early-season tests against Power Conference programs Arkansas and Iowa State, started the season 1-4 before rallying with wins in six of their final eight games. The bowl victory helped Jones improve to 6-3 all-time in the postseason.
Arkansas State is scheduled to open the 2026 season, its sixth under Jones, Sept. 5 at Memphis, which will be under the first-year direction of Charles Huff.
The head coaching match up in that game will be a familiar one; Huff's 2025 Southern Miss Golden Eagles narrowly defeated Jones and the Red Wolves, 27-21, in November.