Boys, we got a real baseball coach.
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Winner.
Right off the bat the attention to detail is much better. There is a reason why you never saw a Lemonis video like this. I like how he is teaching the players how to handle pressure too by not trying to do too much. Like the gap to gap hitting approach too.
Seems like a coach anyone would like to play for.
I'll say it- in a year or two our baseball program is about to become Tennessee without being douchebags about it.
They will never put a mic near Jans.
much like Saban and his attention to detail with technique....if your coach is preaching the right mindset and you've been getting that all season with your approach, your team is much more likely to "get hot".
I LOVED hearing him say "slow your heartrate when you're at the plate". Hit it head high and drive it...don't swing for the fence. If your hitters can get this mindset, we will go very far. If we would have had that mindset in 2013 against UCLA, we would have 2 NC's now. We popped everything up those 2 days. No discipline at the plate.
Not a bucket in sight.
I'm not as big a baseball guy on many on here but I'll tell you one thing we will lose some games but it will not be that we were out coached or unprepared.
Dude that is what a top level coach looks like in any sport. We got a winner and good times are coming to MSU soon.
One thing a lot of people don't realize about BOC. He is the only ACC coach to win a NC since the 1950's. And he did it in the SEC dominated era beating Vanderbilt I believe.
It's easy to see why his teams succeed and get to Omaha so much.
And while Virginia is a good program and has a lot of resources for baseball relatively speaking - BOC now has more resources than he has ever had before.
To me, honestly it feels like we finally have settled our baseball coach situation for the first time since Cohen left. There were definitely times where Lemonis you felt like he was going to be fine and even times when I felt like that about Cann. But it's just that BOC feels like the real deal. You know he isn't going to do anything like Cann did and you also don't get the sense that if he wins a NC it might be because of what was left behind.
I’ve honestly never been this excited about baseball. I’m ready to see what the new coaching brings. I’m excited about the players and the potential with this group. I love how tough the schedule is. There will be high level baseball and big games all season.
Actually - I'll go one better. This is the first time we've had our coaching situation settled, coach completely focused, program well resourced, and fanbase unified since Ron Polk first "retired" in 1992.
After he retired and then unretired in '92, Polk was going thru the motions. Maybe you can argue when Mac was coach we had it - but he was obviously thinking of "bigger and better" and being out of Polk's shadow. We won't talk about Polk II. Cohen split the fan base - and more importantly the funding base. Cann was Cann. Lemon pre-2022 was there - but even then we had people not all in like this, and then he lost it.
It's a testament to the program that we've been able to compete at a pretty strong level during all of that.
That's a pretty good rundown. Our fans were too stuck on Ron Polk for well over a decade and it held us back. Every single MSU fan wanted to see him win a NC at MSU but after 1992 it was clear he wasn't going to do that. MSU chose to live in the past for over 20 years and then tried to sabotage Cohen for actually trying to win a NC. And what Cohen did as a baseball coach was remarkable to me. He took a team that was a losing team and had split support and was lagging third in the state of Mississippi in baseball in recruiting and eventually if we're all honest here turned the baseball program into the program MSU fans wanted by 2016-2021. I can't say that Cohen split the fan base- Polk did. If Polk had supported Cohen from the start things probably recover more quickly. I don't think we have a NC without Polk and what he did. But we also don't have one without Cohen and what he did to get the program back on course. Ironically, neither one of them officially won the NC here. But both of them had a lot to do with it.
Lemonis was perfect for the short term. A lot of coaches would have Joe Moorheaded that situation. His laid back approach worked great when we had plenty of leaders like Mangum, TA, and Ethan Small that could hold people accountable. Long term we're probably regional type team with a lot of lack of attention to detail never allowing us to hit our true ceiling like 2024. The big boosters simply had enough when we lost to Texas last year. I saw a video of Lemonis today and it looks like he is doing well and has lost some weight. He'll get another head coaching job soon if I had to guess.
If we're not top 8 headed to the CWS, I'll be bummed. But we should be good enough throughout the season to set ourselves up for a good Super matchup and we have the pitching depth to win the 4-team tourneys. This is the first baseball season I've actually been excited about since we won the SEC... and of course the natty season.
The SEC is brutal, and it's baseball, so I hope the talking heads don't lose their minds when we inevitably drop a game or series we shouldn't. It's going to happen. But we're also going to win some games and series that we probably shouldn't (UCLA would be nice).
How many are making the trip for opening weekend?
Little nugget i Saw this morning-
State baseball is not in the Top 25 of college baseball in wins since 2000
Agree completely on Polk. He was never the same after 92. He honestly wasn't the same after 90 if we're being honest. He didn't really want to be here and was just kind of, as you said, "going through the motions".
McMahon had it but if we could've gotten him in 92, he probably wins a national championship here.
Official Polk II was collecting a paycheck and got lucky that his 07 team got on a heater. We would remember that time far worse if not for the 05 team getting hot in Hoover and the 07 team going on the heater of a lifetime we would remember that era a lot less fondly.
Cohen didn't split the fanbase, or the funding base, as baseball coach. That came when he was the AD. Cohen the baseball coach actually got us back to level footing with the rest of the baseball elites and caught back up, and passed OM, who had lapped us under Bianco.
Cann had it and everyone bought in. The 17 team was one of the most fun teams to be around and just be in awe of the stupid ways they would win. Cann wins a national championship in 19 and probably 21. I've said it once and I'll say it a million times over, Cann was Vitello before Vitello.
Lem was a little Polk 1.5ish with better recruits to start. He got a natty but it was on the backs of Cohen guys and guys who had been through the 18 and 19 trials and tribulations. He did get Bednar though and we don't win without Will.
O'Conner has the chance to be what McMahon probably would've been if he would've come in 92 instead of 98. By that, I mean give us a great 10 years with 2 national championship and probably 6 appearances in Omaha.
Don't get me wrong - I was a big fan of Cohen as HC. But those first 3 seasons our fanbase was split and was pretty brutal about Cohen - and people did hold back money (and hated his cussing and bunting). That started changing in 2011, and was repaired a good bit by the 2013 run. It still kept him from really running on all cylinders for a while. Imagine the monster he could have built faster if everyone was in like they are with Oak.