Mississippi State Review/Preview: Uncertainty No More, Expectations Must Complement Each Other
- Doug Kyle
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
By Colton Watson and Doug Kyle
Uncertainty. No term better describes Mississippi State Baseball’s recent plight more than this. Things were uncertain heading into the 2025 season, State needing to replace the production from a school-record, and SEC-leading, 11 Major League Baseball Draft selections from the 2024 roster.
Uncertainty grew at the beginning of SEC play, when State faced questions about everything from their starting rotation to the employment status of Head Coach Chris Lemonis. As the season has aged, so has many State fans’ patience, as more questions began to arise.
Would this team make the postseason? Do we even want them to? While the Bulldogs largely struggled in SEC play, upticks in their performance midway through the conference slate only muddied the waters further.
The 2025 campaign had certainly been disappointing, but not so poor that Bulldog loyalists could check out and rest assured that their team wouldn’t see June. Question marks continued to pile up, though, when State suffered five defeats in seven tries from April 18 to April 27, losing leads in four of them.
Some clarity was provided when Athletic Director Zac Selmon and the University parted ways with Lemonis on April 28, but the move posed more questions than it answered. Why now and who made the decision? Did the University succumb to online social rants from fans and media alike? Did it make the move in order to protect its bargaining position and better steer the subsequent narrative and process? Who would the interim coach be? Who will State pursue for the job? Perhaps most importantly, how will the team respond to it?
That final question was answered resoundingly, pleasingly last Tuesday, then astoundingly over the weekend. Pitching coach Justin Parker took the wheel a week ago, and the bus hasn’t gone anywhere but onward and upward. An emphatic three-game sweep of Kentucky, after breezing through a midweek contest with Memphis, has the Bulldogs back in the post-season picture with two weeks left to play in the regular season. After they led their own pre-game huddle in the first post-Lemonis game, many stepped up against Memphis and then against UK to make some ooh-and-ahh plays, things they routinely have revealed Lemonis taught them to do, but ultimately couldn't elicit from them often enough.
Kentucky came in three games ahead of Mississippi State in the SEC standings, but State closed that gap by beating the Wildcats in a variety of ways this past weekend. The first game of Saturday’s doubleheader started off the way so many games before had finished for Mississippi State—with miscues and mistakes that snowballed into a crooked number for Kentucky in the second inning of the series.
The Wildcats’ brand of active and aggressive small ball is almost perfectly designed to take advantage of the weaknesses State has displayed all year—infield errors, free passes, and trouble controlling the base paths.
But the thralls that filled the Dude this weekend were treated to a different-looking ball club than they’re probably used to seeing this season. Parker would later refer to it in a post-game meeting with media as a "wakeup call."
State soon buckled down and responded to Kentucky’s 3-spot. They continued to tack on with massive innings in the scoring column and a monster day from catcher Joe Powell, who laced two doubles and a home run. State needed just seven innings to take care of Kentucky in Game 1 for their second SEC run-rule of the season.
In Game 2, State jumped out to an early lead twice, but Kentucky closed the gap each time in the middle innings. Six consecutive scoreless innings led to a 5-5 tie in the bottom of the 11th, when Powell came in and ignited a walk-off single, scoring Bryce Chance from second base for the first true walk-off of the year for State, a sudden-death victory that sent the Dude’s crowd home happy after 18 innings and 7&1/2 hours of baseball activity. Rome may have not been built in a day, but a SEC series was won in one last Saturday.
On Sunday, State had the opportunity to get a coveted sweep, the first of 2025 and not since Auburn in 2024, both Super Bulldog Weekend, and they didn’t blink.
UK’s starter Ben Cleaver had been one of the best Sunday pitchers in the country, but State posted a 2-1 lead when he exited the game, shortly before blowing the contest open on a bases-loaded double from—guess who—"Fireman"Powell. Outfield heroics (Michael O'Brien personifying the defense he's in the game to provide with a monster home run robbery) and bullpen dominance (Parker would say after the game Luke Dotson has the best fastball on the team, even "on fumes") ensued from there, and State closed out a 6-1 game with a renewed energy and a sense of joy that was palpable to everyone in the ballpark. It wasn't just the largest crowds all year, it was also the most energetic ones, that realized now was the time for all good Bulldogs to come to the aid of their team.
An invigorating run-rule; a walk-off that showed the fight still left in these Dawgs; a badly-needed sweep that puts a shot into the arm of State’s postseason hopes and could propel them to bigger things than anybody thought possible only a week ago. State took it to a worthy SEC opponent this weekend, but that’s not the only way they found to answer some of the worrisome questions that had accrued throughout the season.
Yes, the coaching change has paid off in spades in the short-term thus far. Yes, State can make the post-season—their record is adequate should they take care of business the rest of the way. Of course, State will be a problem for any host’s regional they find themselves in come May 30, should they play their way into the field.
But most importantly: yes, Mississippi State baseball is alive and well. A season-best and 2025 NCAA-best three-game crowd packed into Dudy Noble Field this weekend to see a team play without a head coach. The team is playing its best baseball of the year when it absolutely had to. While the cloud of uncertainty surrounding Mississippi State baseball is far from dispelled, the fog is starting to lift just a smidgeon. One thing that is for certain—this team sure ain’t done yet, and even without a midweek while taking exams, one has to feel they'll be prepared when the Ole Miss Rebels come to town Friday, especially after one of those that got away was against the rival last month in Pearl.
Our second word for today is complement, meaning to complete. With the renewed optimism comes some realism too. Lemonis won Mississippi State's first baseball National Championship, something so many came so close to tasting and experiencing under names like Gregory, Polk, McMahon, Cohen, and Henderson. And so many comparisons were made, ironically against him, later when the level of success subsided from what he achieved.
To be fair, Mississippi State was deemed by many deserving of hosting a regional last year, but the same politics that brought that regional hosting role, which many fans live for, so often in the past may have just gone around and come around at the worst possible time.
But, all that's done now, there's a program's future resurgence to complement, a current team to support, to follow wherever they may be playing. There's a new coach to hire, the settling of the staff, who stays, who goes, and likely, more goodbyes to be said and thanks to be expressed.
Let's start it with Chris Lemonis. So many convey that, but there's often also a comma and "however" following it. "Thanks, Coach Lemonis for the National Championship, however..." Let's just say "Thanks, Coach Lemonis PERIOD. No "Yeah, but..."
And one more thought we need to leave with you. As much as State's record changed since June 30, 2021, the day the jinx died, the game of college baseball has changed since then too. If you think this whole unpleasant and unsettling predicament is going to be all nice and neatly resolved by just changing head coaches, and maybe some staff members, you may be in for more disappointment sooner than later.
If the level of candidate and hire we're hearing touted comes to pass, it's going to take enhanced support from all of Diamond Dawg Nation to bring it back. Why should you pony up more than you're already spending on tickets and tailgating supplies?
Because, that is what it's going to take now. If you want to run with the Big Dogs and proudly call yourself a Mississippi State Baseball Bulldog, you're going to have to act like one and give the next coach and staff their pick of the recruiting and portal litter.
It's going to be even more critical, if the expected paltry portion reported for baseball from revenue sharing is accurate, that if you want to be a part of and associated with big time college baseball, one of its proud supporters as we all like to brag, we as fans have to complement what the University and Athletic Department are putting up as their ante.
The groundswell Mississippi State produces better than any other program, in any other conference, in any other state or city outside Omaha, NE, has to be a part of the solution, without continuing significant reliance for sustenance on the echelon of Bulldogs whose names you see emblazoned and engraved around the ball park and the campus.
Do you see Ron Polk doing the Uncle Sam point below? He's pointing at you, Bulldogs, he's saying I WANT YOU!
All of you.
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