Quote Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg View Post
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.