Actively interviewing for another conference team's position also damages Mississippi State's brand.
Thinking about Jans more - in his tenure at State he has seen the following 2 scenarios...
- Thread starter dawgstudent
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This is just excuses. In the Hump’s heyday during the 2000s, I remember watching nearly every game on tv that I couldn’t attend. Our fanbase just likes to create a list of reasons to not travel to games. And I’m not talking about the fans who live 2 hours +. I’m talking about the fans in the GTR who have stopped going
This is delusional. It is not the same day in sports as your heyday. There a lot variables in play. Games used to always be on the same days. Games are at different times all of the time. The costs have gone through the roof on everything too not just tickets. Some are turned off by NIL and the culture around college sports now. seating availability and costs affect people wanting to go out to a game as well. I live 4 plus hours a way and when I watched on tv this year they had a lot of support this year considering all of these things that a new to the environment from early 2000s. It is completely different now. Only thing that's the same is 5 dudes on each team trying to put a ball in the hoop.
Active coaches are known to have interviewed for other jobs all the time. Calipari has it in his contract that he actually has to notify UK if he interviews.
So people stopped going to games because… *checks notes* games are on different days and different times. This is 1) very dumb 2) inaccurate
Games have always been on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Saturday. That has never changed. ESPN Super Tuesday was a thing in the 2000s
I get the point, but I don’t think we can really compare Jans’s tenure to the two abominations that Arnett and Lemonis put on the field. It’s 2024, and there’s no such thing as loyalty in college athletics when you’re getting paid millions of dollars for derailing a train and running it into a ditch.
On the other hand, it does entirely beg the question as to why Jans hasn’t been publicly extended. He’s done as much as could possibly be asked in his first two seasons with this roster, and lord knows we’ve extended contracts for much less in the past. If we’re not going to commit to him, I can’t fault him for looking at other opportunities
I’ll be sure to never miss an opportunity to make fun of Ole Miss football this year and their heavily damaged brand from Kiffin interviewing with Auburn a few years ago…..as they are playing most every game in prime time with a single digit number next to their name on the scoreboard.
Also, LOL at UK basketball…..lost their coach to a program in the same league. Clearly Arkansas basketball is a much better brand than UK****
I will say this - 7 PM start time is the sweet spot for basketball which was the norm back in the 2000's. For those living in Jackson, 6 PM is too early and 8 PM is too late. If the game started at 7 - you could be home by 11. And a good number of people are coming from Jackson.
There's a hitting coach that was apparently turrible too those 2 seasons. And there were multiple balls booted in the field and over/under thrown balls to 1st (see Kamren James, Slate Alford & Lane Forsythe), there were multiple base running errors (still are) who gets credit for all of that crap?
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Anyone thinking Jans would be here long term hasn't looked at his coaching history. He has moved every 2-4 years except for 7 years as an assistant at Wichita State.
I'd like him to stay but if he wants to move on then so be it.
I'd like him to stay but if he wants to move on then so be it.
Yep, but besides the base running, we’ve seen improvements here. Graduation and transfers helped us with some errors, too.
Had we fired the guy 2 years after a natty, our next coaching search would’ve been about as successful as when we hired Rick Ray in basketball. If he bombs this year, maybe it could be better justified. It’s not looking like he will, though.
1- It is extremely common for assistants and juco coaches to move frequently. I dont think that reality should factor into whether or not a coach is viewed as a frequent mover or not. They move frequently for the same reason why entry level hourly employees move frequently.
2- He would have stayed at BG for longer than a single season.
3- He was at New Mexico State for 6 seasons before coming to MSU.
Jans went and got him after Ole Miss fired the coach that Hubbard liked. I will give Jans credit because he recruited Josh and signed him.
1) Hitting was not at all the problem the past 2 years. Was plenty good enough to win some games. Could it have been better? Sure. But we lost a lot from 2021’s high point there, too.
2) The 2022 team, you know, the one that finished dead last in the SEC, was also the #1 fielding team in the SEC that season. Best in the conference. This after the 2021 team, the one that turned out OK, was dead last in the SEC in fielding. Fielding has been the very least of our issues.
We tied KY in '22 for 10th in worst batting average (the year we finished last in conference) but led in fewest errors, which looks to be a hitting problem to me if you aren't making errors but getting beat by not scoring runs. We were 6th in batting avg '23 (finished conference next to last) and had the most errors. That '23 team led the conference, 65 errors, and had the worst fielding % in the conference. Univ of Northern MS was the only team worse than us. We had the next to last worse RPI (51), again only ahead of Northern MS.
Well, he couldn't out recruit Kermit, but at least he could get a Jackson kid to Starkville with Ole Miss out of the picture.
We didn’t get beat because of the hitting. We got beat due to pitching completely falling apart after losing 4 arms, including a 1st round talent, our closer, and 2 other critical arms.
So we were a middle of the pack team hitting in the SEC, making us probably one of the 20-30 best hitting teams in the country. aGAIN….hitting wasn’t the issue….having the worst pitching staff in SEC history (literally) was the issue.
We were worst in the league in errors and fielding %….one year after being the best in both, and 2 years after being the worst in both another time. Now in 2024, we are best in the league in conference games only and 2nd best overall.
So….we’ve gone from last, to first, back to last, then back to first again in terms of fielding percentage in the past 4 years. Yet the narrative is that Lemonis is a crappy coach because we have “poor defensive fundamentals”. Its a ridiculous take because its basically saying that Lemonis takes every other year off on terms of “coaching defense”. If he’s the scapegoat for 2021 / 2023, he’s also the one who deserves all the credit for 2022 / 2024. Can’t have it both ways.
The actual truth is that Lemonis doesn’t have a 17ing thing to do with the fielding %….good or bad…and neither does just about any SEC head coach. Because learning how to routinely field, throw, and catch isn’t something players are still doing at this level. Players are what they are defensively at that point. If our defense is good, it probably means some combination of our pitching being good (thus opponents making less frequent and weaker contact, more dribblers and pop flies than line drives or sharp grounders) and the players that happen to be our best hitters are also good fielders. If it isn’t, it probably means the opposite in one or both.
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Coach Polk had one losing season in his entire 36-year career as a HC. And it was his last season ever, 2008, so I hardly think your reply fits here. And Polk was winning with his players, guys he brought in himself.
It was a losing SEC record, sorry. It was NOT his last season either, far from it.
C'mon dude! Ron Polk followed a CWS appearance with a losing SEC record in '80 (1 game under), '82 (2 games under) & '86 (3 games under). Then not again until 2008 under "Ron Polk 2", which we all acknowledge was when the game, the recruiting game in particular was passing him by. In 2008 he finished 12 games under in the SEC, and it was his last year as a HC at Mississippi State.
Lemonis followed his CWS up with BACK-TO-BACK 9-21 SEC records, 12 games under! Are you seriously suggesting that Polk's last season...the one where he accepted he was too past his prime to keep going (and announced his retirement mid-season) is in any real way comparable to Lemonis going 12 games under 2 seasons in a row immediately following his CWS appearance?
And 2008 was also the only year Polk had a losing overall record. Bad, bad year, but again, the man announced his retirement mid-season, stating he was too old and unable to keep up the energy required! That's 1 losing season in 29 as MSU HC. Lemonis in 4 seasons had a losing record in 1 and finished just one game over in another.
Lemonis inherited a top-notch program on a roll, with elite players and 1st-rate facilities. Polk had to build our program into one of the best in the country. I realize you clarified you were only talking about SEC records. Still, 2008 was Polk's last as a HC and the only in his entire career with an overall losing record.
Not sure if you are serious or just trolling, but he is one of only three coaches in college baseball history to get three different schools into the College World Series.
2x National Coach of the Year (1973, 1985)
4x SEC Coach of the Year (1979, 1985, 1989, 2001)
College Baseball Hall of Fame as soon as he retired
His teams won five SEC championships and five SEC tournament championships. His teams participated in the NCAA tournament twenty-three times, and reached the College World Series eight times.
Polk is a member of the following Six Halls of Fame; Georgia Southern University Hall of fame. American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. State of Mississippi Athletic Hall of Fame. Mississippi State University Athletic Hall of Fame. National College Baseball Hall of Fame. Phoenix, Arizona High School District Hall of Fame
He is a Former President of the American Baseball Coaches Association. Winner of the Lefty Gomez Award which is the highest award given by the American Baseball Coaches Association. Received the highest award given out by the state of Mississippi Athletic Hall of Fame- The "Rube" Award. Coach Polk has also completed seven tours on the U.S.A. National baseball team coaching staff serving as the head coach two times and as an assistant five times. He has coached in the Olympic Games two times once Seoul, South Korea in 1988 when the team won the gold medal and the other in Atlanta, Georgia in 1996 when the team won the Bronze medal.
He took us to 6 CWS appearances. Are you gonna tell us not winning the 1985 CWS was on Polk? He had that team ready to win it all in dominating fashion until that freak play where Gene Morgan got hit in the ankle. By far the best team at that CWS.
Lemonis inherited the National Pitcher of The Year, 3 1st-team All-Americans, 3 MLB 1st-rd picks (of which only Ethan Small was one of the 3 AA's. Landon Sims committed to us pre-Lemonis. Now Will Bednar you can chalk up to Lemonis, but also our program's reputation, facilities, etc.
So, in your opinion, Lemonis who walked into a stacked roster, not needing a rebuild of any kind, is comparable to what Polk did?
So he never won a national championship. That's sort of a big deal you know.
We just need Jans to realize, at some point, that he’s probably at the pinnacle of his career as head coach at a mid-tier SEC program. The past 3 weeks of rejects has likely opened his eyes and reset his expectations a little. Just sign the damn contract, dude. Deal with being a multi-millionaire in a low rent district.
He’s made his own bed. Gonna be awkward at family reunions if he doesn’t get picked up soon. He’s made it more than known he wants to GTFO, but has no takers. KY settled early on a hire from a mid-level basketball school. Not as much of a shakeup as he probably had hoped for. Bless it.
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