STARKVILLE — “For Mississippi State baseball, anything less than Omaha is unacceptable.”
John Cohen said those words four years ago when he replaced Ron Polk as baseball coach at Mississippi State University. The comment showed Cohen, who played for Polk from 1988-90, understood the expectations he faced in re-invigorating a program that went 23-33 in 2008 a year after advancing to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.
Now Cohen, his assistant coaches, and his players realize back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances aren’t good enough for MSU fans who are desperate for the program’s first national championship.
“It is exactly what we want. It’s hard to have that conversation after going 23-33 (MSU’s record in Cohen’s second season),” Cohen said. “You want your players talking about it. You want your fan base talking about it.”
Cohen understands the expectations of MSU’s fans. He was a part of a program that won 44 games and played host to a NCAA tournament regional in 1988, won 54 games, a Southeastern Conference title, and played host to another NCAA regional in 1989, and won 50 games and played in the College World Series in 1990.
Times have changed, though, and SEC teams, as well as the rest of the country, are on more equal footing. Cohen should know because he won only 24 games in his first year as head coach at the University of Kentucky in 2004. Two years later, Kentucky won 44, was SEC champion, and was playing in the NCAA tournament. Cohen won 39 and 44 games in his final two years in Lexington, Ky., before returning to Starkville to replace Polk.
Cohen said it won’t be easy for any program to dominate college baseball like MSU did under Polk. The Bulldogs won 34 or more games for 21 straight seasons under Polk, and advanced to the NCAA tournament 16 times and to the College World Series four times in that span. The rest of the SEC and the nation have learned their lessons, have invested, and have built programs capable of competing with MSU.
“It’s never going to be the way it was 20 years ago because nothing will ever be what it was 20 years ago,” Cohen said. “It’s completely different now because all the parameters are different. (It was) a 65-game regular season 20 years ago (with) no Arkansas or South Carolina. Everything is different.”
This season, the SEC has four programs (University of Florida, LSU, the University of South Carolina, and the University of Arkansas) vying for spots in the College World Series.
Two-time defending national champion South Carolina is riding a 19-game winning streak entering its best-of-three series against the University of Oklahoma, the last team to beat USC.
“I think every coach in this league is going through the same thing, but every program in this league is going to be good, period,” Cohen said. “That is what separates the SEC. If you take 20 years ago and say, ‘Hey, Kentucky has a real good chance to get to Omaha, everybody in the room is going to start laughing. (You say), ‘Hey, Vandy is going to make a run at Omaha.’ They’re like, ‘Hey, do you want some odds on that, I’ll give you 50-to-1.’ Who is going to take 50-to-1 on anybody in our league not making it to Omaha?”
Cohen realizes his team’s offense will have to improve if it wants to get back to Omaha. The Bulldogs earned their first 40-win season since 2005 despite being one of the worst hitting teams in the SEC. MSU was near the bottom of the league in batting average (.251, 11th), slugging percentage (.333, last), on-base percentage (.358, 10th), and runs scored (287, ninth).
“Experience is everything, and I probably said this way too much, but when you go into as season with guys who have never played Division I baseball, you can’t expect them to face the breaking stuff and the velocity the SEC presents, or any high level of Division I baseball,” Cohen said. “It is mentally exhausting. It is draining. It is a grind. You have to have gone through it. That is why I really believe all these guys will get better.”
Samford University defeated MSU twice to eliminate it from the 2012 Tallahassee Regional. MSU scored just two runs in the losses. It expects to have every member of its starting lineup back next season as it tries to improve its offense and duplicate its success on the mound and in the field.
“I said the minute I got here we have to produce top-10 (draft) picks to compete in this league,” Cohen said. “We have to change some things in this program to get it where we want to be.”
Cohen said MSU isn’t going to make that improvement with new fundamentals but with better technique. The Bulldogs will expect players like Hunter Renfroe, Wes Rea, C.T. Bradford, and Daryl Norris to play even bigger roles in 2013.
“As much as I disagree with a whole bunch of things that are in (the book) “Moneyball”, the thing I agree with is they showed (Boston Red Sox infielder) Kevin Youkilis and his benefit is he swings at strikes and takes balls,” Cohen said. “When you go off in the summer and face really good competition, that is what evolves — the ability to recognize pitches. The mechanical part is really overrated. What is really underrated is the ability to evaluate the pitch quickly and to swing at strikes and take balls. That is the part we have to get a lot better at.”
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