STARKVILLE — The 2025 Mississippi State baseball team was dead in the water in April. The team sat at 25-19 overall and 7-14 in the Southeastern Conference.
Just from watching the performances, Tanner Allen, the former SEC Player of the Year and a national champion with the Bulldogs, wasn’t surprised when the poor results led to Athletic Director Zac Selmon firing head coach Chris Lemonis.
The season mirrored Allen’s freshman year in 2018. Both teams fought their way to the postseason after losing their head coach, and shared one common denominator.
“A lot of that had to do with Jake Gautreau, I can promise you that.”
The hitting coach arrived in Starkville as an assistant under Andy Cannizaro in 2017, a head coach who was fired three games into the 2018 season. Suddenly, Gautreau was tasked with coaching without knowing if he’d still have a job after the season, coaching players who didn’t know if they’d have a roster spot at the end of the season.
“We knew a new coaching staff was coming in and had an idea that coaches were going to be gone, but that didn’t faze him,” Allen said. “He still poured everything he had into us, every single day, to get us prepared and be the best baseball players we could be to help MSU win. He did that this year as well, and when someone does that for a program while basically being a walking dead man, it shows you a lot about their personality and who they are. I have the utmost respect for him.”
Despite the struggles as a team, the Bulldogs boasted an impressive offense in 2025. The team broke a 27-year-old program record for home runs in a single season. All-American standouts Ace Reese and Noah Sullivan shone throughout the year, and slugger Hunter Hines recovered from a slow start to break the all-time home run record formerly held by Rafael Palmeiro.
By the end of May, the Bulldogs had booked a ticket to the postseason at the Tallahassee Regional, the same place where the 2018 team started their run to the College World Series.
Elijah MacNamee, the walkoff hero against Florida State that year, said that Gautreau and fellow assistant Kyle Cheesebrough’s presence alone gave him confidence in the 2025 group.
The Bulldogs started hot with seven runs in the opening three innings against Northeastern, facing a pitcher with the nation’s lowest ERA, but struggled against the hosts, Florida State.
The Seminoles put the Bulldogs on the brink of elimination on Saturday, setting up a Sunday rematch with MSU needing to win twice. Despite leading for much of the contest, MSU couldn’t hold on late and fell, 5-2.
Within an hour of the result, MSU announced Brian O’Connor as the new head coach.
An emotional locker room that had dealt with the weight of the future all weekend now had a long bus ride back to Starkville.
Legendary MSU coach Ron Polk spoke to The Dispatch about the O’Connor hire while en route with the team back to Starkville, and though he expressed his approval and excitement about the new coach, he said he regretted the timing and the reality for the assistants he had come to know and appreciate in recent years.
“At the same time, I’m disappointed that maybe some of our coaches will no longer be allowed to remain,” Polk said. “That’s not good for a coach and his family, but welcome to college athletics, right?”
Unlike the players, Gautreau knew his run with the Bulldogs was over. O’Connor’s longtime assistants Kevin McMullan and Matt Kirby had already made their presence in Starkville known on social media before the team had returned from Tallahassee, and well before the staff was officially confirmed on Thursday. By that time, Gautreau’s office was packed up.
“Anytime you make a coaching change in-season, it takes great professionals in the clubhouse,” Athletic Director Zac Selmon said in his press conference after introducing O’Connor. “Coach Parker did an unbelievable job, didn’t flinch, and there’s a lot of change in a short time, and I think the entire staff, Gaut, Cheese, Bobby and all the support staff, they stepped up and did a great job, and I can’t thank them enough for what they’ve done to get us here, and I’m really excited about where we’re going in the future as well.”
Playing against the odds
Gautreau’s clearest connection in his time at MSU has been with the players, one that comes naturally after his career in college and the minors.
“The number one piece for me is making sure they understand that I have been through exactly what they’re going through,” Gautreau said in a 2021 Dispatch profile. “And a lot of times, my experiences were extremely challenging, tough times.”
Gautreau was a first-round draft pick out of Tulane and spent nine years in the minors battling to make The Show, but injuries and illness kept him from realizing that dream.
Those setbacks, and the emotional rollercoaster of dealing with them, helped make Gautreau the coach he is today. For nine years, he played against the odds, fighting through the pain and symptoms of ulcerative colitis and arthritis before eventually retiring in 2009.
“The closer you’ve gotten to the sun, the more calm you’re able to be,” friend and MSU director of campus services Saunders Ramsey said. “With Jake being a first-round draft pick, being around major league ball players, and being with Scott Boras, he’s been as close to the sun as you can be. That calming factor of just stay the course, be consistent and true to yourself, and work hard, that’s rare, in my opinion. The way he carries himself is rare, and for the kids to have had access to that for the last seven or eight years has been a blessing to them.”
That ordeal shaped Gautreau into a player’s coach, one who leaves behind a clear impact in Starkville, not only with the prolific offenses and championship-winning teams he coached but also with his devotion to his players.
“The more time I spend with him, the more obvious it is that his focus is on his players,” Ramsey added. “Not his career or the future, he just continues to focus on what’s best for the kids. In the highest of highs or lowest of lows, it’s about his players.”
“I love him to death,” former Bulldog and current Tampa Bay Ray Jake Mangum said of Gautreau. “He helped me in so many ways, and he’s a great person and a great coach. He deserves a great opportunity to coach somewhere.”
The 2018 team had plenty of talent and leaders in the clubhouse, but to make it to Omaha took a real gut check, and having Gautreau on staff helped them find the fight in themselves to pull through against the odds.
“You can tell a lot about someone when they’re in a low point or their back is against the wall, and there is no other move but pinned up against the wall like we were in 2018,” Allen said. “None of us knew what was going to happen, but we kept playing, we kept the main thing the main thing.”
For Allen in particular, he flipped his commitment from LSU to play for a coach who was no longer there, but in Gautreau, he found a mentor who knew the player experience, who kept him focused on the task at hand, and helped keep him at MSU beyond 2018.
“He is a player’s coach, and he’s been with me through the lowest of lows and the highest of highs,” Allen said. “He’s been a big part of the success of my baseball career. He is one of a kind, and whoever gets him is getting a winner and a player’s coach. I can’t wait to see where he goes.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
