HUGHEY: Mississippi State finally hired the big one
06/01/2025
By Rivers Hughey
I’ve loved Mississippi State Baseball for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest and best memories are from the Left Field Lounge. Bare foot and romping through the area behind the outfield as a kid while legends were being made out on the field. I’ve watched players grow up in maroon and white and then make it all the way to The Show. I still have visceral reactions to certain walk-out songs, because they take me right back to a moment. Not just in a game, but in my life.
Mississippi State Baseball is part of my personal timeline. I can mark seasons of my life by who was coaching, who was on the team, and what song was being played before a batter walked up to the plate.
I’ve seen Ron Polk leave and return, watched Pat McMahon try to follow a legend, John Cohen grind out more than a few gritty seasons, Andy Cannizaro sadly implode, and Gary Henderson lead a team to Omaha with duct tape and magic.
I celebrated the glory of 2021 with Chris Lemonis, the coach who finally brought a national championship to Starkville, and sat through the gut-punch years that followed.
And for as long as I’ve been a fan, there’s been one common thread: every time the job opened up, we dreamed big and ended up with the right hire, not the huge one. That’s not a knock on McMahon, Cohen, or Lemonis. They all had meaningful tenures. But none arrived in Starkville as a headline. We’ve always been the program where coaches proved they belonged on the big stage. Not the program that pulled someone off of it.
Until now.
Because Mississippi State just hired Brian O’Connor. The guy who built Virginia into one of the most consistent powerhouses in the sport, turned down LSU in 2021 among other SEC suitors, and owns a national title ring.
This is different. This is historic. This is the kind of hire that Mississippi State has never made in any major sport. Not even when we landed Jackie Sherrill, Mike Leach, or Ben Howland. None of them brought the kind of sustained success that O’Connor has. And none of them arrived with the ultimate prize already in hand.
Earlier this spring, O’Connor earned his 900th career win. He leaves Virginia after 21 seasons with a 900-370 record, seven College World Series appearances, two ACC championships, and one national title. Since 2009, only Florida has made more trips to Omaha. His program tied for the second-most MLB players on Opening Day rosters this year. His resume isn’t good. It’s generational.
And here’s the part LSU fans know all too well: they tried to hire him. When Paul Mainieri retired in 2021, he didn’t just recommend O’Connor. He practically begged him to take the job.
“You have an unbelievable baseball coach at Virginia, not just because he’s my friend,” Mainieri said at the time on the Jerry Ratcliffe Show. “This guy knows the game, and he is absolutely phenomenal. I wish I could have talked him into leaving Virginia to come and replace me at LSU, but he wouldn’t bite.”
O’Connor turned them and his mentor down. Not because he couldn’t see the opportunity. He saw it. He respected it. He even talked about how the two of them joked about him succeeding Mainieri in Baton Rouge. But in the end, he stayed in Charlottesville.
“If it’s about developing players and getting to Omaha,” O’Connor told The Daily Progress recently, “why is there another job that’s any better?”
That’s what makes this so stunning. Because this time, he left.
It took a rare set of circumstances to make it happen. Chris Lemonis, who went 232-135 at Mississippi State, delivered a title in 2021 but missed the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons. A 25-19 record this year and a regional berth weren’t enough to change the direction.
On May 1, athletic director Zac Selmon made the move, saying, “We have not consistently met the standard of success that our university, fans and student-athletes expect and deserve.” Assistant coach Justin Parker stepped in as interim, and the search was on.
For the first time, Mississippi State didn’t just cast a wide net, it reeled in the biggest fish in the pond.
You can try to analyze this hire with coaching trees and win percentages and postseason appearances, but honestly, I’m thinking about it like the fan I’ve always been. The one who grew up out in left field. The one who can’t hear certain songs without picturing a player walking up in the eighth inning with a runner on. The one who always wondered what it would feel like to see our program, the one we know is great, land a coach that everybody wanted.
Now I know.
Brian O’Connor is coming to Starkville.
And Mississippi State just made the biggest hire in college baseball.