Henderson has earned the right to turn it down, if he doesn't want it

Would you be saying the same thing if MacNamee didn't manage to take our final strike of the season over the wall in Tallahassee?

we wouldn't get near the negative reaction that Byrne got from Polk and many message board posters when he passed on Raffo for Cohen. You have to look long term.

Henderson has done a very good job in a tough situation. That doesn't mean he should be our leader going forward. But I would rather table this conversation and continue to enjoy this run.

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Originally Posted by bostondawg

Would you be saying the same thing if MacNamee didn't manage to take our final strike of the season over the wall in Tallahassee?

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There are a lot of legit discussions to be had about Henderson and whether he should get the job...this one however makes no sense to me. Hell we could use that excuse about anything at any time in sports. we don't question the legitimacy of the 91 team and say, "hyuk hyuk...what if ol Burke ain't hit that homer n we'd lost?"

Is the braves win in 95 not legit since they only won on justice's homer. Maybe the 91 twins aren't legit since it only went 7 because of puckett's walk off on game 6. Hell of Cabrera hadn't found a hole in 92 the pirates woulda won the pennant...better take that one back as well. I mean shit we could do this all day.

Once again, there are legit questions that I have myself but when folks throw stuff like this out it lessens their opinion in my view. How bout this angle, it was henderson's leadership, giving the team an identity (as magnum put it), and his willingness to let gotro run the offense that gave the team the mental fortitude to fight til the very end and allowed them to orchestrate such a come back win. Problem is that don't mesh with what some have been trumpeting from the rooftops every chance they've had.

When some of y'all double down on what really is an emotional response to your previous assertions...which is in great contrast to what is occurring with this team...any and every absurd reasoning gets spewed out.

1. Gary does deserve credit for this season
2. He doesn?t deserve the full time job because of his post season run.
3. Very MS thing to do is hire him. See our past.
4. I can?t see him being the long term answer unless he wins it. That would change my mind.

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Originally Posted by Cooterpoot

1. Gary does deserve credit for this season
2. He doesn?t deserve the full time job because of his post season run.
3. Very MS thing to do is hire him. See our past.
4. I can?t see him being the long term answer unless he wins it. That would change my mind.

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I agree. If he wins the natty, I’d consider it then. If not, let’s hire the best coach for the job.

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Originally Posted by MarketingBully

I agree. If he wins the natty, I’d consider it then. If not, let’s hire the best coach for the job.

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I really don't get it. Why does winning the national championship change your opinion. Miami made that mistake with Larry Coker. If we go with Henderson, that's fine, but it shouldn't be based on the next week of play.

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Originally Posted by shoeless joe

There are a lot of legit discussions to be had about Henderson and whether he should get the job...this one however makes no sense to me. Hell we could use that excuse about anything at any time in sports. we don't question the legitimacy of the 91 team and say, "hyuk hyuk...what if ol Burke ain't hit that homer n we'd lost?"

Is the braves win in 95 not legit since they only won on justice's homer. Maybe the 91 twins aren't legit since it only went 7 because of puckett's walk off on game 6. Hell of Cabrera hadn't found a hole in 92 the pirates woulda won the pennant...better take that one back as well. I mean shit we could do this all day.

Once again, there are legit questions that I have myself but when folks throw stuff like this out it lessens their opinion in my view. How bout this angle, it was henderson's leadership, giving the team an identity (as magnum put it), and his willingness to let gotro run the offense that gave the team the mental fortitude to fight til the very end and allowed them to orchestrate such a come back win. Problem is that don't mesh with what some have been trumpeting from the rooftops every chance they've had.

When some of y'all double down on what really is an emotional response to your previous assertions...which is in great contrast to what is occurring with this team...any and every absurd reasoning gets spewed out.

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I'm not questioning the legitimacy of a team. We're talking specifically about an interim coach and if they deserve the full time job or not. I'm simply offering a not-so-crazy alternate reality in which no one would probably believe Henderson deserves the job.

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Originally Posted by HoopsDawg

I really don't get it. Why does winning the national championship change your opinion. Miami made that mistake with Larry Coker. If we go with Henderson, that's fine, but it shouldn't be based on the next week of play.

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If we win a national championship, my patience with the program would change tremendously. We would have a national championship. Although I think he would be more Steve Alford then Larry Coker. Henderson is a good recruiter and average coach. As long as the staff would be kept together and a bad ass pitching coach was hired, I’d let Henderson stick around four years in exchange for a natty this year. A natty changes things with our program in every way.

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Originally Posted by HoopsDawg

I really don't get it. Why does winning the national championship change your opinion. Miami made that mistake with Larry Coker. If we go with Henderson, that's fine, but it shouldn't be based on the next week of play.

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Because your hands are tied from a reputation standpoint and he’s a unicorn. He would have won the first natty in any major sport at State.

If we win it all then you spend a few minutes considering Hendo. If we don?t then Hendo is not part of the equation. Period.

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Originally Posted by bostondawg

I'm not questioning the legitimacy of a team. We're talking specifically about an interim coach and if they deserve the full time job or not. I'm simply offering a not-so-crazy alternate reality in which no one would probably believe Henderson deserves the job.

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Fair enough...and I agree that the difference between 1 and 0 trips to Omaha for a given coach isn't that great, but that small difference is a major qualifier for a lot of folks. I'm not saying that's a good thing but Henderson is checking a lot of boxes. But again, I keep thinkin about bill Stewart in an almost identical situation and how that didn't work out in favor of WV

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Originally Posted by HoopsDawg

we wouldn't get near the negative reaction that Byrne got from Polk and many message board posters when he passed on Raffo for Cohen. You have to look long term.

Henderson has done a very good job in a tough situation. That doesn't mean he should be our leader going forward. But I would rather table this conversation and continue to enjoy this run.

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I think the problem at that time was you not only had the Polk and Raffo stuff but you also had Cohen people, you had people that wanted Steve Smith, you had Brian Shoop people....just a lot of different factions.

Polk is the ultimate "clinging to a coach" situation. We have so many fans that only really watch MSU baseball that they thought that Polk's way was THE ONLY way to play the game. I think we had a lot of fans that tried to make Cohen like Polk- complaining about cussing in the dugout and all of that crap. You had Polk ripping Cohen behind his back too. It was just a really rough time. I honestly don't know how Cohen turned it around other than just sheer will and stubbornness.

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Originally Posted by shoeless joe

Fair enough...and I agree that the difference between 1 and 0 trips to Omaha for a given coach isn't that great, but that small difference is a major qualifier for a lot of folks. I'm not saying that's a good thing but Henderson is checking a lot of boxes. But again, I keep thinkin about bill Stewart in an almost identical situation and how that didn't work out in favor of WV

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Well, if Cohen feels like that's what the situation would be he shouldn't hire Henderson. I think a lot of our fans have created this scenario in their heads where if we win a National Championship WE HAVE TO hire Henderson and that's not true. Will the media question it? Maybe. But if they did it would be pretty short lived. To me it's not worth having to go through a period where we don't reach our full potential so that we won't get bad press. We haven't promised anything to anybody.

If we hire Gautreau or the guy from Purdue or whoever and the media questions it- we need bash the hell out of them as fans on social media. They don't have our best interests at heart anyway so who gives a **** what they say? Killaburger is in with Ole Miss and Cleveland is in tight with USM and they want us to make a crappy hire so that they can go back to their glory days of the 2000's when our program was soft.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Well, if Cohen feels like that's what the situation would be he shouldn't hire Henderson. I think a lot of our fans have created this scenario in their heads where if we win a National Championship WE HAVE TO hire Henderson and that's not true. Will the media question it? Maybe. But if they did it would be pretty short lived. To me it's not worth having to go through a period where we don't reach our full potential so that we won't get bad press. We haven't promised anything to anybody.

If we hire Gautreau or the guy from Purdue or whoever and the media questions it- we need bash the hell out of them as fans on social media. They don't have our best interests at heart anyway so who gives a **** what they say? Killaburger is in with Ole Miss and Cleveland is in tight with USM and they want us to make a crappy hire so that they can go back to their glory days of the 2000's when our program was soft.

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My issue is, in baseball all you can ask is to be in position for a championship. Henderson has shown he can do that. From here on out it's really just dependent on good pitching, timely hitting, and catching some breaks...in other words, that's baseball stuff. So if we want a guy to come in and compete for championships it'd be hard to argue against Hendo. The question arises as to whether he can do it consistently. I honestly believe if we hire him we'll be really good for another 2-3 years. But what happens after that? Can he build the type of program we want. I don't know...but are we certain some other guy that's not a shloss, McDonnell, etc would do better over the short term? Is competing at a high level over the short term worth a back slide in the long term? Are we sure we'd back slide? Does Hendo want the job? How long does he want to coach?

Cohen knows the answers to most of those and has a good idea on the others. Therefore I'll defer to him...

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Originally Posted by Jacksondevildog

Prisoner of the moment. Cohen cannot let the team catching lightening in the bottle at the end of the year cloud his judgment on the hire. Remember, we were one pitch away in Tallahassee from the option not even being on the table. I think we have to get a few more ?No?s? before we offer Henderson. The exact thing happened with Polk in 2007. We got hot and made Omaha and extended Polk. He obviously needed to go before the Omaha run but we got caught in the moment and figured Polk would turn it around. The program was bottoming out and most of our fans refused to see it for what it was. That allowed Ole Miss to continue their climb in recruiting.

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+1

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Originally Posted by CadaverDawg

No. You don't give a job to a guy as a reward....you hire a guy that gives us the best chance to win going forward. If the best we can get is Henderson, hire him. But it isn't, and he shouldn't get the job. If Cohen hires Gary, it's a sign that Cohen is more worried about how he'll look if he doesn't, than the future of our program.

That's my thoughts.

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Yup. Great post

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Originally Posted by Cooterpoot

1. Gary does deserve credit for this season
2. He doesn?t deserve the full time job because of his post season run.
3. Very MS thing to do is hire him. See our past.
4. I can?t see him being the long term answer unless he wins it. That would change my mind.

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Originally Posted by MarketingBully

I agree. If he wins the natty, I’d consider it then. If not, let’s hire the best coach for the job.

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Agree. I might change my mind if he wins it all. Still prob won’t but that’s the only thing that could make me change my mind. It would actually prob make me more ready to hire GoTro as HC.

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Originally Posted by BHildreth3

If we win it all then you spend a few minutes considering Hendo. If we don?t then Hendo is not part of the equation. Period.

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Agreed

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Originally Posted by shoeless joe

Fair enough...and I agree that the difference between 1 and 0 trips to Omaha for a given coach isn't that great, but that small difference is a major qualifier for a lot of folks. I'm not saying that's a good thing but Henderson is checking a lot of boxes. But again, I keep thinkin about bill Stewart in an almost identical situation and how that didn't work out in favor of WV

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Good comparison... other than Dabo who has been untra successful after being promoted from interim to HC?

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Well, if Cohen feels like that's what the situation would be he shouldn't hire Henderson. I think a lot of our fans have created this scenario in their heads where if we win a National Championship WE HAVE TO hire Henderson and that's not true. Will the media question it? Maybe. But if they did it would be pretty short lived. To me it's not worth having to go through a period where we don't reach our full potential so that we won't get bad press. We haven't promised anything to anybody.

If we hire Gautreau or the guy from Purdue or whoever and the media questions it- we need bash the hell out of them as fans on social media. They don't have our best interests at heart anyway so who gives a **** what they say? Killaburger is in with Ole Miss and Cleveland is in tight with USM and they want us to make a crappy hire so that they can go back to their glory days of the 2000's when our program was soft.

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Serious question bc I honestly don’t have a clue abt him but what has Purdue’s coach done worth mentioning?