What caused Foxhall?s fall?

[AlSwearengen]

I?ve seen it mentioned that he checked out at some point. When did he check out and what caused it? I was told that he was missing tryout camps and workouts and I?ve seen stuff here that seemed to verify that without the posters coming out and saying it.

Or was it just an approach that wasn?t working with the pitchers that he had?

[parabrave]

Not adjusting to the smaller strikezones is one thing/

[Mjoelner34]

Bednar and Sims were dominant with a high 4-seamer and a slider. Not everybody is Bednar or Sims and he tried to make everybody Bednar and Sims. How many high zone 4-seamers got sent 400 feet the opposite direction in 2022?

[confucius say]

Prob best to close this one.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

Prob best to close this one.

I don't care much about the topic, but what's wrong woth discussing the failings of a fired former coach? We discussed Mullins lazy recruiting plenty, or Canns extra marital activities, or Moorheads inability to discipline the team, so why not discuss where Fox failed?

[Cooterpoot]

I got killed for it, but I said Foxhall was never good. Beat that drum until it was realized by all. He got Bednar here and a couple good pen guys but he never was a great coach. I appreciate he got those guys. That's about it for me. I won't mention the other stuff.

[Coach34]

Bednar and Sims were dominant with a high 4-seamer and a slider. Not everybody is Bednar or Sims and he tried to make everybody Bednar and Sims. How many high zone 4-seamers got sent 400 feet the opposite direction in 2022?

Anybody can coach Bednar and Sims. Coaches earn their money with what they are able to do with guys like Hunt, Smith, Holcombe, Presto, Fristoe, Pico, Stinnett, etc

The last 2 seasons have killed us with injuries, lack of depth, and lack of development. Too many guys that needed time to develop or were projects were being thrown into the fire before they were ready. Then throw in that we have failed basically with pitchers from the portal and here we are.

[Coach34]

I got killed for it, but I said Foxhall was never good. Beat that drum until it was realized by all.

Yeah, people got mad at me in 2021 for talking about how we left pitchers in too long before making a change. We got away with it then- not so much in 22 or 23

[sandjunky]

He was an average coach at best

I just wonder why Lemonis didn?t try to keep Henderson at least for a year as PC

[Coach34]

I just wonder why Lemonis didn?t try to keep Henderson at least for a year as PC

After getting passed over for the head job- no way Henderson was staying

[bulldogcountry1]

Hunt and Stinnett are the two best examples of guys who were in the program a long time under Foxhall and should have major contributors.

[KOdawg1]

His fascination with the slider and the mentality behind it imo.

The slider is great, but not all sliders are created equal. Bednar and Sims could throw their slider in any count because it was an elite pitch for them. It's not that for everyone else. Not everyone has the stuff to be strikeout or bust type guys.

We didn't throw a lot of change ups. We don't throw sinkers or cutters. Why? Throw that shit in the zone and let your defense work. If I'm a guy that can't top 92 mph with my FB, why not put some spin on it and make it cut to make it tougher on the hitter? I'm not gonna serve my flat and slow fastball and only mix it up with my slider.

I think that's one of the areas Fox fell short

[viverlibre]

The age-old adage, it's about the Jimmy's and Joe's not the x's and o's applies in this case. Had we signed Skenes, we'd likely hosted and Fox would still be here.

[Coach34]

The age-old adage, it's about the Jimmy's and Joe's not the x's and o's applies in this case. Had we signed Skenes, we'd likely hosted and Fox would still be here.

Skenes was a once in a generation pitcher- if not the best SEC pitcher in modern history. Once LSU offered- he was going there

[CaptainObvious]

From my 30000 foot view, Skenes was too arrogant to survive the Air Force and just arrogant enough to pitch for LSU. I?m just not sure Skenes would have worked out at State the way he did at LSU. Foxhall would have had him throwing 80% sliders and he would have walked a dozen per game.😳😳

[SPMT]

From my 30000 foot view, Skenes was too arrogant to survive the Air Force and just arrogant enough to pitch for LSU. I?m just not sure Skenes would have worked out at State the way he did at LSU. Foxhall would have had him throwing 80% sliders and he would have walked a dozen per game.😳😳

Skenes was not arrogant. Give me a 17n break! Why would you go pitch at Air Force and then go active duty before you can get out and pitch!? Wtf man?! The guy is supremely gifted at a job everyone on this board would give their left nut to be able to be a fraction of as good!

Maybe foxhall would have 17d him up
But I have my doubts. He handled our pro caliber pitchers very well. We all
act like he was an idiot, however when he had talent close
to, but not as good as Skenes, he was awesome. Our talent 17n sucks and some guys will tell you otherwise, but it isn?t to our level. Neither is the culture. That?s a Lemonis problem, not a foxhall problem. He was the sacrificial lamb.

[parabrave]

Skenes was not arrogant. Give me a 17n break! Why would you go pitch at Air Force and then go active duty before you can get out and pitch!? Wtf man?! The guy is supremely gifted at a job everyone on this board would give their left nut to be able to be a fraction of as good!

Maybe foxhall would have 17d him up
But I have my doubts. He handled our pro caliber pitchers very well. We all
act like he was an idiot, however when he had talent close
to, but not as good as Skenes, he was awesome. Our talent 17n sucks and some guys will tell you otherwise, but it isn?t to our level. Neither is the culture. That?s a Lemonis problem, not a foxhall problem. He was the sacrificial lamb.

Academy players don't have to serve.

[SPMT]

Academy players don't have to serve.

17 yeah they do. Graduate and your are definitely committed to active duty. In rotc it was post sophomore year.

[parabrave]

17 yeah they do. Graduate and your are definitely committed to active duty. In rotc it was post sophomore year.

Well up to 5 years ago the players had to at least serve with a Reserve Unit to fulfill their terms of service if they were drafted, David Robinson and Napoleon McCallum . But when I asked a West Pointer who currently plays for the Lookouts how he was serving he told me that they don't have to receive their commission until later. As a former Army Officer, INF/AVN, I'm still wondering how this affects their career paths because they aren't commissioned yet but then again their year growp doesn't start till they raise their right hand. But getting back to FoxHall Harding is down here for a series in Biloxi and I'll ask him tomorrow what he thinks of him..

[Todd4State]

Yeah, people got mad at me in 2021 for talking about how we left pitchers in too long before making a change. We got away with it then- not so much in 22 or 23

You could make an argument that his poor pitching staff management in Omaha cost Jake and co a National Championship when we brought in Trysten Barlow and Riley Self instead of Colby White against Vanderbilt.

I remember Riley Self's sister came at me on Twitter over it. Even in 2021 we were essentially really only down to four pitchers- Bednar, Sims, Harding, and Preston Johnson and maybe Chase Patrick. MacLeoud got injured and Fristoe regressed from a guy who threw a no hitter to basically a no show in the postseason. Cerentola never developed either and we trot him out there way too much. Better pitching staff management and that team might have been a 50 win team in the regular season.

[Todd4State]

I?ve seen it mentioned that he checked out at some point. When did he check out and what caused it? I was told that he was missing tryout camps and workouts and I?ve seen stuff here that seemed to verify that without the posters coming out and saying it.

Or was it just an approach that wasn?t working with the pitchers that he had?

Really hard to pinpoint from the outside looking in. I don't think it was one thing- but probably a lot of different things that causing a perfect storm.

I think he lost his way and/or got burned out. That would explain some of the rumored absences and lack of recruiting. I think what happened to us the past two years is the same thing that has happened to the Cardinals and Yankees- we started to rely too much on analytics in an effort to stay ahead and lost focus on the basic fundamentals of the game. Which to me would explain our one size fits all pitching approach. As other have said- Will Bednar and Landon Sims could pitch up in the zone and have nasty sliders so they fit what Foxhall wanted and could do what he wanted in an effort to pile up strikeouts- which if you look at the stats our team did indeed do while he was here. But the problem is pitchers have different arsenals of pitches and some have more sink and etc. so you really don't want to have a one size fits all approach.

Things were fine when Landon could bail him out after Stinnett or whoever walked the bases loaded or Harding could come in and save Fristoe and eat four innings for us. But when those guys left or got hurt there was no one to turn to. And I don't think Foxhall could figure out how to fix it or it was simply too late to fix it.

His pitching staff management was dreadful. He left guys in the game way too long and it resulted in inflated ERA's and I think it shot the confidence of some our pitchers who had to constantly be rebuilt confidence wise. Eventually I think at least some of the pitchers lost confidence in Foxhall- probably after sessions with their old high school or private pitching coaches which some players actually left Starkville for a day or two to reconnect with so they could try to find some confidence. I know I've seen at least one of our pitchers basically question Foxhall while they were on the mound after shaking off signs repeatedly and I've seen our pitchers in one instance just completely do his own thing- which didn't work and got him chewed out. My guess is that's why Lemonis just fired him during the season because stuff like that can eventually come to a head and get ugly sometimes. No one likes to get knocked around as a pitcher and they take as much blame if not more than the pitching coach not to mention it hurts them as far as pro baseball goes. See KC Hunt.

Also in 2022 we literally had no LHP (I think we had one) with experience. That's a recruiting fail and should have been addressed in the portal.

[SpaceBully]

NT

[SpaceBully]

We didn't have enough quality SEC pitching depth to overcome losing Sims and several other key hurlers. You have to have the type quality depth that BAMA and UGA football have. There will ALWAYS be unforeseen pitching losses. My beef with Foxhall and Lemonis was not capitalizing on the 21' NC mojo and criscrossing the country for top notch talent. I think we sat on our butts a little more than what we paid them to do. You have to have that talent pipeline full of quality players ready for their turn to step up.....and we did not do that, especially with pitchers.

[basedog]

We didn't have enough quality SEC pitching depth to overcome losing Sims and several other key hurlers. You have to have the type quality depth that BAMA and UGA football have. There will ALWAYS be unforeseen pitching losses. My beef with Foxhall and Lemonis was not capitalizing on the 21' NC mojo and criscrossing the country for top notch talent. I think we sat on our butts a little more than what we paid them to do. You have to have that talent pipeline full of quality players ready for their turn to step up.....and we did not do that, especially with pitchers.

"It's Just That Simple".

[TNDawg35]

We didn't have enough quality SEC pitching depth to overcome losing Sims and several other key hurlers. You have to have the type quality depth that BAMA and UGA football have. There will ALWAYS be unforeseen pitching losses. My beef with Foxhall and Lemonis was not capitalizing on the 21' NC mojo and criscrossing the country for top notch talent. I think we sat on our butts a little more than what we paid them to do. You have to have that talent pipeline full of quality players ready for their turn to step up.....and we did not do that, especially with pitchers.

THIS literally sums it up. Plain and simple…

[Cooterpoot]

We didn't have enough quality SEC pitching depth to overcome losing Sims and several other key hurlers. You have to have the type quality depth that BAMA and UGA football have. There will ALWAYS be unforeseen pitching losses. My beef with Foxhall and Lemonis was not capitalizing on the 21' NC mojo and criscrossing the country for top notch talent. I think we sat on our butts a little more than what we paid them to do. You have to have that talent pipeline full of quality players ready for their turn to step up.....and we did not do that, especially with pitchers.
You have to develop them or sign it. Foxy did neither. LSU only had one real good arm most of the season. But at the end, everyone was throwing well. It's ok to say Foxy just wasn't good.

[dawgoneyall]

I?ve seen it mentioned that he checked out at some point. When did he check out and what caused it? I was told that he was missing tryout camps and workouts and I?ve seen stuff here that seemed to verify that without the posters coming out and saying it.

Or was it just an approach that wasn?t working with the pitchers that he had?

Poor recruiting.....

[Coach34]

We didn't have enough quality SEC pitching depth to overcome losing Sims and several other key hurlers. You have to have the type quality depth that BAMA and UGA football have. There will ALWAYS be unforeseen pitching losses. My beef with Foxhall and Lemonis was not capitalizing on the 21' NC mojo and criscrossing the country for top notch talent. I think we sat on our butts a little more than what we paid them to do. You have to have that talent pipeline full of quality players ready for their turn to step up.....and we did not do that, especially with pitchers.

Exactly- and our portal pick-ups on the mound have been below SEC level overall with a couple of good pieces mixed in. But we have failed here and its really hurt us

[basedog]

Exactly- and our portal pick-ups on the mound have been below SEC level overall with a couple of good pieces mixed in. But we have failed here and its really hurt us

Big time! It goes back to Lemonis, he fell asleep in the last two years and recruiting proves or shows it. Makes me wonder on coaches who achieve great success and then losses everything gained from it. Not a good sign, poor planning.

[State82]

Big time! It goes back to Lemonis, he fell asleep in the last two years and recruiting proves or shows it. Makes me wonder on coaches who achieve great success and then losses everything gained from it. Not a good sign, poor planning.
Yep. Success like that should make a driven person slam the gas pedal to the floor. See Nick Saban/Kirby Smart. But, it was not to be here in our most successful sport.

[viverlibre]

Yep. Success like that should make a driven person slam the gas pedal to the floor. See Nick Saban/Kirby Smart. But, it was not to be here in our most successful sport.

I think it's just as easy to get fat and happy after huge success. Makes what Saban and Belichick have done even more impressive. How they have kept the fire for so long is special. I don't know if we can put Smart in that category yet.