It may not be this year- but Manieri knows what's coming. That's why he's freaking out. Cann at MSU makes his job a LOT harder in coming years. And he's constantly on and off the hot seat at LSU in terms of criticism because he will never be as successful as Skip Bertman. He's safe of course- he won a National Championship and I think his contract runs through something like 2024. It's hard to find assistants like Cannizaro- of course they usually become head coaches. I don't have any evidence of this although I probably could find out if I dug a little bit- but I wonder if Manieri sabotaged Cann with the Tulane job. That might be a lot of the reason why Cann and Cohen kept things incognito. I think Trent Jewett is a good coach but I can not fathom him being more impressive in an interview than Cann- plus Cann is a Tulane alum. Manieri is weird about his former assistants anyway- he was pretty open about not wanting to coach against Brian O'Connor at Virginia. I think he may be a little bit like Polk- scared that one of his assistants will replace him and then be better than him.

I think that's one reason why Berry lost his cool tonight- he knows that this was his chance to be at the top of the state and he knew it. I think USM will continue to be strong because they are a big fish in their weak conference- but I don't think they will be hosting regionals every year and going to SR and Omaha consistently like we will be doing.

I think the future of the SEC West is going to look like this in baseball:

MSU, LSU, and A&M competing for the top spot.

Alabama, Auburn, and Arkansas being very good.

Ole Miss in a gradual decline.

Pretty much the way it's supposed to be.