Zac Selmon shares what it took to land Brian O’Connor as Mississippi State coach

It takes more than just one thing to get someone from a job where they’ve spent twenty-plus years at. Mississippi State brought that to table, though, when it came to hiring Virginia’s Brian O’Connor as their next head baseball coach.

After his introduction on Thursday night, AD Zac Selmon spoke about his hiring process of O’Connor from out of Charlottesville. He said the biggest thing to get him to come to Starkville was to find their connection, which they made over what he could accomplish in personal development off the field, to go with player development on it, in Starkville.

“You know, for me, it always starts with connection with somebody and relationships. You know, I think so much of my career has been built on just genuine relations with people. So it starts there, of a common vision of what sport can do,” said Selmon. “You know, I think, in Coach O’Connor’s comments earlier, you hear a lot about the development of the person and, you know, I think we’ve said a lot of times here is we know that winning is the output of all the meaningful inputs that we do. So, I think, when we first met, that’s what we talked about a lot, of how can we make sure that what we’re doing at Mississippi State – clearly, yes, we want to win and embrace those expectations, embrace the standard that Mississippi State Baseball is but, most importantly, how do we make young men better? And that’s what’s really cool about college sport.”

“And so I think we hit it off right away…But, it started just with connection,” Selmon said.

O’Connor is coming off a 22 year-long career at Virginia, where he went 917-388-2 overall (.705). That led to 18 appearances in the NCAA Baseball Tournament, seven of which led to appearances in the College World Series with one national title won in 2015.

This was a month-long process for the Bulldogs since relieving Chris Lemonis as head coach. However, the week from still making the 2025 NCAA Baseball Tournament to hiring O’Connor, made it all worth it as far as what the future of the program will be for Selmon.

“Yeah, it’s been a, you know, fun week, an exciting week in so many different ways,” said Selmon. “First and foremost, you think about our young men, you know, who responded to a lot of adversity in the middle of a season, that played their hearts out, that came together and then to have them have an opportunity to go to play some postseason baseball was really special and, can’t say it enough how proud we are of the men that we have in the clubhouse. Clearly, as you’re juggling that, getting the team ready to go play in the postseason, you also understand we’ve got to make sure that we get Mississippi State Baseball positioned for next year and what’s going to come. We all know the timelines of what we’re up against with the portal, all those things.”

“It’s been, I think, a week full of emotions,” Selmon said. “But, anytime you look back on a week like this, it’s affirming how special of a place Starkville, Mississippi is and the people that we have here and that’s something I know I’ve got a lot of joy and comfort in, knowing, when you’ve got a night like tonight, when people could be a lot of different places but they chose to be here and be part of something special.”

O’Connor could have certainly remained with the Cavaliers with the resume he had there. Still, Mississippi State made a case to him that got him to Duby Noble Field starting next year to coach the Diamond ‘Dogs.

“I’m sure I’ll have some more thoughts when I have a chance to sit and collect my thoughts, if you will, but right now, I think, just grateful for what a week and for all the hard work of so many people,” Selmon said.