Late commentary but I am so damned proud of our Softball team the past few years

[Mr. Cook]

This team embodies the true grit that I fully expect from a Mississippi State team. On the field, in interviews, and by the way they carry themsleves, they truly represent State in such a highly positive light.

And to any of the parents of the players, a tip my cap to you for raising top shelp women (as a father to daughters, I can relate to how challenging this can be....especially for the dads out there)

Keep going, Ladies....You're playing with "house money" now!

 

[Duke Humphrey]

Kudos to Cohen for making the change from Studemann to Ricketts. Studemann made a regional in 7 of her 8 years, but obviously John knew she wasnt going to elevate the program like Ricketts has done.

 

[615dawg]

Kudos to Cohen for making the change from Studemann to Ricketts. Studemann made a regional in 7 of her 8 years, but obviously John knew she wasnt going to elevate the program like Ricketts has done.

It was very evident that Ricketts was the force behind Studemann's success.

We've been an elite pitcher away from being a powerhouse for 20 years. A run to the WCWS could get us that elite pitcher. We had a girl from Texas in the mid-00s that out of high school had 0.08 career ERA. She ended up being a head case and transferred out after a year. A couple years before that, we had a a highly regarded pitcher that couldn't stop stealing from teammates. She went to a Pac 12 school and had a decent career.

State softball just hasn't been able to get the elite pitcher that you need. We have always had great hitters. McMichael was one of the best players in college softball history. Mia Davidson is going to end her career as one of the best five HR hitters ever.

 

[patdog]

One thing Cohen is not scared to do is fire a coach. That's one thing he gets right. Previous ADs up until Byrne would hang on to a coach until he had no choice but to fire him. But if you're not getting the job done, Cohen will fire you and try a new hire. And usually, his new hire is better than the coach he fired.

 

[047Dog]

One thing Cohen is not scared to do is fire a coach. That's one thing he gets right. Previous ADs up until Byrne would hang on to a coach until he had no choice but to fire him. But if you're not getting the job done, Cohen will fire you and try a new hire. And usually, his new hire is better than the coach he fired.

It's not just the AD though, it's a good portion of the fanbase. MSU fans put the coaches up on such a pedestal that they absolutely refuse change only until AFTER the wheels have fallen off. If the fans had been allowed to make the call, it would have been a good chance that Crooms got another year and Stans would be serving out his lifetime contract.

 

[patdog]

No doubt about it. The analogy I make is most MSU fans look at hiring a coach as a marriage, till death do we part. We need to be looking at it more like casual sex. As long as it's fun, great. But as soon as it stops being as much fun, it's time to move on to the next one.

 

[The Peeper]

I was curious if Stuedeman had gotten another coaching job and it doesn't look like it, looks like she's selling real estate for Keller Williams Realty in Tuscaloosa.

 

[Cooterpoot]

Now go get the All American pitcher transferring from Michigan..lol

 

[Bobby Ricigliano]

Who was the really good player we had 4-8 years ago? Maybe from the Memphis area? Maybe stole a bunch of bases (if you can do that in softball)?

 

[ZombieKissinger]

I think that's shifted hard though in the last 10 years. Some of that is part of national trends, but some of the Mississippi State-specific changes are related to message boards, social media, changing of the guard, etc.

I wanted Stans to go by the end of his last season, but there was a tiny bit of ambivalence. I was 100% for Croom leaving. I was worried that fluke of a year in 2007 would buy him another year, and I was worried about the backlash for firing the first black head coach in the SEC the year after he won various coaching awards, but fortunately the media was pretty understanding of the move. I remember Herbstreit even saying it was time.

More recently, I loved the Moorhead firing even though it'd been 2 years with a decent record. I was worried we'd be scared to pull the trigger. At the same time, I want Leach to get another couple years at least, especially with his track record, the difference in expectations and COVID stuff. We'll see about Jans, but I am very excited about that hire.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

I think Crooms last egg bowl performance made it really easy for everyone to see he needed to go. I’m thankful we didn’t mess around and play good enough to keep it close.

 

[patdog]

I was convinced the win over Arkansas the week before had saved his job. I was pissed. Fortunately, he made Byrne's decision an easy one.

 

[ZombieKissinger]

Agree. My Ole Miss friends were saying I was was full of BS when I said that I was glad we lost by that much, but it was truly because it made it so much easier to dump Croom

 

[Smoked Toag]

It's not just the AD though, it's a good portion of the fanbase. MSU fans put the coaches up on such a pedestal that they absolutely refuse change only until AFTER the wheels have fallen off. If the fans had been allowed to make the call, it would have been a good chance that Crooms got another year and Stans would be serving out his lifetime contract.

Can you imagine Crooms throwing his "10-year plan" pitch out there in this day and age with the portal and what not? He'd be laughed out of the room (as he should have been in late 2003). It's criminal that so many teams had to pay so much money for these coaches over the years, only to be told we needed to "give them time".

Coaching salaries is what DIRECTLY led to the mess we are in now. So 17 them and their whining. Get to work.

 

[Smoked Toag]

No doubt about it. The analogy I make is most MSU fans look at hiring a coach as a marriage, till death do we part. We need to be looking at it more like casual sex. As long as it's fun, great. But as soon as it stops being as much fun, it's time to move on to the next one.

Very easy to say this, but much harder to execute. You have buyouts, etc. It's much better to have an overall plan for your program, and keep a list of coaches that fit that, so you can plug and play, rather than to sit there and have a damn 'national search' (LOL) every 3 years, just totally guessing on what you want your program to be, like Auburn.

I give Cohen credit for kicking out Slopface and hiring Leach. However, we could have made a MUCH better hire in 2017, and no telling where our program would be at this point.

Same with baseball in 2001. While I'm happy with how everything turned out, chances are we'd be MUCH better had we hired Maneiri rather than Polk 2 (and I understand this happen across multiple ADs, just trying to make the point that were weren't prepared to hire a coach in 2001).

 

[patdog]

He'd be laughed out of the room. These days, if your plan is longer than 3 years, you're not going to get the job.

 

[GTDawg]

Chelsea Bramlett... Could turn a blooper down the line into a double or triple.

 

[MSUDC11]

I was curious if Stuedeman had gotten another coaching job and it doesn't look like it, looks like she's selling real estate for Keller Williams Realty in Tuscaloosa.

She was an interesting character if you ever met her. I know the dancing from the third base coaches’ box used to rub people the wrong way.

I don’t remember the exact story of how she ended up here but I know she was a long time Bama assistant and had a major falling out with their head coach right around the time she was offered our HC job. She didn’t do terrible here but she definitely didn’t elevate the program. It was almost identical to what Jay Miller did here. I remember we hosted the SEC Tourney in the brand new Nusz Park 5-6 years ago and then didn’t even qualify for the tournament in our own stadium. Ricketts coming in as an assistant probably prolonged her career here.

To be fair, Ricketts’ track record didn’t look much different until this past Sunday. But this is only her second full season as head coach and she already has us farther than we’ve ever gone before so clearly there appears to be more promise with her long term.

 

[Len2003]

Now go get the All American pitcher transferring from Michigan..lol

There's another pitcher transferring from Bama. Several players transferring from Bama.

 

[Cooterpoot]

There's another pitcher transferring from Bama. Several players transferring from Bama.

She's similar to Annie. Give me the AA pitcher.

 

[G-Dawg]

There's another pitcher transferring from Bama. Several players transferring from Bama.

Bama is in disarray. Their fanbase is intense. Some are actually calling for Patrick Murphy to resign or at least fire a bunch of coaches. The fact that K.B. Sides left and then became SEC Player of the Year at Arkansas really rubbed some fans wrong. There is talk that Montana Fouts may enter the portal. Snowball's chance in hell we get her, but one can dream.

 

[Cooterpoot]

Bama is in disarray. Their fanbase is intense. Some are actually calling for Patrick Murphy to resign or at least fire a bunch of coaches. The fact that K.B. Sides left and then became SEC Player of the Year at Arkansas really rubbed some fans wrong. There is talk that Montana Fouts may enter the portal. Snowball's chance in hell we get her, but one can dream.

KB Sides left due to the team wanting her gone. Fouts was leaving if Sides had stayed. There was a divide in the team and a group of players wanted Sides gone. Fouts has already announced she's coming back.

 

[615dawg]

I don’t remember the exact story of how she ended up here but I know she was a long time Bama assistant and had a major falling out with their head coach right around the time she was offered our HC job.

Its actually one of the weirdest stories in college sports history. Patrick Murphy, the Alabama head coach, was offered and accepted the LSU job. She was promoted to head coach at Alabama. Three days after he took the job, was announced, and the whole nine yards, he called Alabama and wanted his job back. Alabama gave it back to him and told her she could be the assistant or kick rocks. State hired her.

 

[615dawg]

11 Alabama players in the portal. Something is going on with that team. We should be able to pick up a good player or two, especially if we have a WCWS run.

 

[Cooterpoot]

11 Alabama players in the portal. Something is going on with that team. We should be able to pick up a good player or two, especially if we have a WCWS run.

LSU is close to firing their coach. A&M has already fired theirs. AL hasn't recruited like they should and their hitting program is not one of the best. AL issues have been going on for a couple years.

 

[615dawg]

Alabama proves that softball is all about pitching. They can't hit for **** and they were the national No. 6 seed.

With our hitting, if we could land an elite pitcher, we'd be a top five team immediately. Going to the WCWS and getting on the radar as an option for one of these elite pitchers can be a program changing moment. Mississippi typically does not produce good pitchers, much less great pitchers and elite pitchers, but there are some elite ones coming up in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida that we could get.

We have to win this Super Regional.

 

[Len2003]

We've had good hitting for the past several years. I always wondered what it could have been like if we had an elite pitcher.

 

[maroonmania]

Nusz Effect.... hopefully that becomes a thing this weekend.

 

[Go Budaw]

No doubt about it. The analogy I make is most MSU fans look at hiring a coach as a marriage, till death do we part. We need to be looking at it more like casual sex. As long as it's fun, great. But as soon as it stops being as much fun, it's time to move on to the next one.

Important to define what “as much fun” means, though. For example, we were just about 100% guaranteed to not have as much fun in baseball this year as we did last year, under any circumstances. Of course, we got really bad circumstances with pitching injuries, so it got way, way worse than it could have been. But it was still going to be a huge downgrade. Obviously, no sensible person thinks its already time to move on from Lemonis.

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

Important to define what “as much fun” means, though. For example, we were just about 100% guaranteed to not have as much fun in baseball this year as we did last year, under any circumstances. Of course, we got really bad circumstances with pitching injuries, so it got way, way worse than it could have been. But it was still going to be a huge downgrade. Obviously, no sensible person thinks its already time to move on from Lemonis.

I think Lemonis and staff woefully underperformed this year. Last year’s team lost 18 games but 3 were in post season. Even when they struggled in February and early March, they still won the games., just not pretty.

Last year we got the Beauty.
This year we got the Beast.
And he never turned into the handsome Prince no matter how much singing, yelling or gnashing of teeth happened!

 

[maroonmania]

I think Lemonis and staff woefully underperformed this year. Last year’s team lost 18 games but 3 were in post season. Even when they struggled in February and early March, they still won the games., just not pretty.

Last year we got the Beauty.
This year we got the Beast.
And he never turned into the handsome Prince no matter how much singing, yelling or gnashing of teeth happened!

I know this is a softball thread but I have to say this. Assuming he stays, next year will be big for Foxhall. We just had WAY too many pitchers this year that were no better or were worse than they were in 2021. I realize that we were impacted by injuries but I mean guys like Fristoe, Tepper, Tullar and Stinnett should have all been much better this year than they were. The only pitcher on the entire staff that took a step forward this year from last year was Cade Smith. We also got very little out of our freshman pitchers outside of some contribution from Kohn. Meanwhile there were freshman doing well in SEC rotations all over the league including the SEC champion TN. Just a very, very poor job of developing our pitching staff in the offseason. And apparently Foxhall has no ability to teach a pitcher to throw a strike. We had already seen that with Cerantola but walks were just commonplace with everyone on our staff this year. Anything close to this type of thing again next year and Foxhall HAS to go.