By: Parrish Alford, Magnolia Tribune
(Photo from Miss. State Athletics)
The firing of Chris Lemonis was unfortunate, but necessary.
It’s rare that college baseball coaches are terminated in-season, but Mississippi State is a rare baseball program.
Built by Ron Polk, the program was college baseball when college baseball wasn’t cool. Indeed, it’s success helped make college baseball cool.
The job of MSU athletics director Zac Selmon is to now protect the Bulldogs’ brand. His worry is not the brand for college baseball in Mississippi, but there’s a trickle down effect here.
When Mississippi State struggles, the state isn’t putting its best foot forward.
“We have not consistently met the standard of success that our university, fans and student-athletes expect and deserve,” Selmon said in announcing the Lemonis break-up.
Lemonis had ample time to build a program to meet that standard.
The demands are high, no doubt, but the there is ebb and flow in the demands. The program has made multiple trips to the College World Series, but it’s not an Omaha program right now. It’s trying to rebuild to that level, and the first step is becoming a consistent NCAA Tournament program.
Earning a 2 seed on the road in his only postseason appearance since winning the national championship in 2021 – the Lemonis body of work in his last four seasons – wasn’t going to cut it. The three other seasons – this one trending that way with the Bulldogs 7-14 in SEC play at the time of the firing – not only weren’t tournament material but weren’t close to it.
Might Lemonis’ fate have worked out differently if the Bulldogs had hosted a regional last year?
They were in the conversation with a 17-13 SEC mark and a 19 RPI.
Playing at home in the NCAA Tournament is always a key piece of the puzzle for those fluctuating demands for the Mississippi State job.
That baseball palace, the new Dudy Noble Field, wasn’t built to house an NCAA 2 seed for 30-some-odd regular season home games.
Selmon knows that, and he also knows that he’s about to complete his third baseball season as AD without a Starkville Regional, without the game’s best sights, sounds and smells at Dudy Noble Field in June.
The youngster from Norman will turn 40 this November. He’s the youngest AD in the SEC and is responsible for all sports on the MSU campus.
In some cases his job security may be based on a sliding scale of success in other sports provided football is not a disaster.
Baseball is different at Mississippi State. Baseball alone can be a job killer if left to rot. What a terrible legacy for any MSU athletics CEO.
Criticism for Selmon’s timing
Perhaps that’s why Selmon pulled the trigger on Lemonis in April. Some have said State’s only national championship baseball coach deserved a better fate.
That’s a tough call. Mississippi State fans, faithful ticket-buyers and attendees, deserve a better product.
The 2024 season ended in the championship round against Virginia in the Charlottesville Regional. It was hoped that would be a springboard in a Lemonis-led restoration project, but it turned out to be a shooting star instead.
“You win the first national championship, in any sport in school history, go to a regional last year then get fired mid-season the following year? They should have built a statue of Chris Lemonis. He did something no one has ever done @HailStatebb. To fire him mid-season is an absolute joke,” ESPN’s Kyle Peterson wrote on X.
The bottom line, and that’s the business of college athletics, is that Lemonis since the championship is 42-69 in SEC games – 25-56 without the shooting star.
Why Lemonis struggled can be debated. What can’t be debated is that he led the Bulldogs to back-to-back Omaha trips in 2019 and 2021 – the 2020 season was cancelled – and won it all the second time.
Critics say his best seasons — SEC records of 20-10 in 2019 and 2021 and home postseasons leading to Omaha trips – happened because of someone else’s players.
Maybe, but he’s not the first head coach in any major sport to reorganize a roster, bring fresh ideas and achieve big things. The new coach still has to push the buttons and make decisions.
Players won’t forget Lemonis.
“Coach @lemo22, thank you for everything you have done for me. You changed my life, and you fulfilled mine and many others’ dreams on that night in 2021! Love you and appreciate you for everything,” former outfielder Kellum Clark wrote on X when news of Lemonis’ firing spread.
Right or wrong, the timing of Selmon’s decision will be largely forgotten if his next hire meets his standard, the Mississippi State standard.
Names of plenty of experienced head coaches, some with MSU ties, some without, have been tossed about, as well as a number of assistants considered now to be rising stars – not shooting stars — in the business.
Whoever lands the job will be given all necessary resources and will be celebrated as royalty in the short term, longer if he wins.
Selmon needs to handle this hiring with care. He didn’t hire Lemonis, but the clean-up job is his.
The program’s tradition and passion are unrivaled.
Wanted: Boots and trucks
A beloved former player from the championship team says it might be wise to consider those things in the hiring.
Tanner Allen says the next coach should be “somebody who has an old-school coaching style and fully understands the Mississippi State baseball culture. Hard-nosed baseball players create scrappy teams. (There are) too many cars in the parking lot. It’s time for trucks and boots to come back. That’s our identity as a program,” he wrote on X.