By Parrish Alford
Mississippi State, no stranger to Omaha, reached college baseball’s mountaintop in 2021.
Since then the Bulldogs have struggled to find the trailhead much less make the climb.
The administration did something about that last April. Now the Bulldogs’ home run hire to replace Chris Lemonis is generating preseason hype compatible with his resume.
Brian O’Connor built Virginia baseball from the ground up with seven Omaha trips in 21 seasons. The Cavaliers won the national championship in 2015.
Baseball America ranks the Bulldogs No. 3 going into the 2026 season. D1Baseball has them No. 4, Perfect Game No. 6.
Fifty-four coaches gave confidential responses when Baseball America asked them who will win the national championship? Five answered Mississippi State with the Bulldogs trailing only UCLA and LSU in those responses.
State will test itself against UCLA, No. 1 by Baseball America and D1Baseball, early in the season at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas.
The Bulldogs and Bruins play on March 1 at 2:30 p.m.
State will take on Arizona State on Feb. 27 and Virginia Tech on Feb. 28.
MSU opens the season Feb. 13 in a three-game series against Hofstra at Dudy Noble Field in Starkville.
“There’s a huge investment there, and he went out and landed some big fish in the portal and high school. It’s an outstanding roster on paper,” one coach told Baseball America.
Indeed, O’Connor, hired in early June, went to work immediately on roster-building.
Transfers with proven experience in the SEC, ACC, Big 10 and successful mid-majors – not to mention five who played for O’Connor at Virginia – help fuel the expectations.
But the buzz comes from O’Connor whose Cavs most recently reached Omaha in 2021, 2023 and 2024.
O’Connor was hired on June 1. Four days later, amid fireworks and former players, he addressed thousands of his new fans at Dudy Noble Field.
The love affair was under way.
Lemonis could not have started his MSU career better. He had back-to-back College World Series appearances and won it all his second year.
But he was never able to recover that championship luster.
The Bulldogs were 18-42 in SEC play the next two seasons, and though he rallied with a 17-13 conference mark in 2024 – there was regional host talk before the Bulldogs were eliminated by O’Connor and the Cavaliers in Charlottesville – State was just 7-14 in the SEC when Lemonis was fired last April.
O’Connor welcomes the hype.
“I appreciate the expectations,” he told the crowd at his introduction/celebration. “When I hear those things, my response is, ‘bring it. Bring it on.’ That will be the attitude of the players as well.”
The Bulldogs picked up transfers at key positions, but also on the mound where O’Connor retained pitching coach Justin Parker, who was 11-4 – 8-1 in SEC play – as State’s interim coach last year.
Tomas Valincius, a left-hander, followed O’Connor from Virginia where he led the Cavs in starts as a freshman. He finished 5-1 with 70 strikeouts and a 4.59 earned run average in 64 2/3 innings.
A big get, no doubt, but O’Connor told the Dear ’Ol State podcast there’s a lot to like about young arms already in the program that he observed during fall practice.
He highlighted a group of players led by sophomores Charlie Foster, a left-hander, and Ryan McPherson, a right-hander.
Foster had a 1.59 ERA and an .081 opponent batting average in 11 1/3 innings last year.
McPherson had a 4.12 ERA in 39 1/3 innings over 20 appearances. He had two starts.
“I was really impressed with the talent and the quality of our pitching,” O’Connor said on the podcast. “We’ve got some key transfers, but that group of sophomore pitchers who had some opportunities last year … to see their growth, coach Parker talking about where they’re at right now compared to where they were a year ago, a number of them were really outstanding. They just don’t have much game experience.”
Parrish Alford, a two-time Mississippi sports writer of the year, was raised in Denham Springs, Louisiana and graduated from Northeast Louisiana University before the school changed its name to Louisiana-Monroe.
He’s covered college sports in Mississippi since 1989, spending time as a beat writer for multiple seasons at each of the state’s Division I schools.
He’s most known for his work as a beat writer and columnist for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo, where he spent 30 years.
He is the author of “Habitual Deadline – sports stories of three-plus decades from the guy who came and stayed.”
A Christian, husband, father and grandfather, he is currently the editor of American Family News (AFN.net), a division of American Family Association.
