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Discuss.
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<div style="font-style: italic;" class="messagebody"><div style="font-style: italic;" class="messagebody"> Yeah. Our fans just don't understand the situation and the uphill climb MSU has just to be competitive in baseball.
Look at the coaching search Georgia had when they replaced Ron Polk after Ron put Georgia baseball back on the map. Vince Dooley contacted Jim Morris at Miami first, and Morris turned him down before Dooley could even ask him if he wanted the job. Vince was also turned down by Rick Jones at Tulane, Dave Van Horn at Nebraska at that time, Mike Martin at Florida State, Keith LeClair at East Carolina, and Steve Smith at Baylor. Georgia has much more to offer relative to having money to get good players there as well as the recruiting base in the State of Georgia, and they still couldn't convince these coaches to come to Georgia.
Coach Polk served as an advisor to their committee in the selection process and publicly recommended Dave Perno for the job. Dave Perno was the only assistant coach Georgia looked at. Their final four for the job were Jim Anderson from Minnesota, Joe Hudak from Winthrop, Pete Dunn from Stetson, and Dave Perno from Georgia. It's interesting that three of those finalists are Ron Polk proteges. In the end, they hired Dave Perno, continued the philosophy that Ron Polk put into place, and have gone to two CWSs since then and are well on their way to another. I bet they are glad Vince Dooley listened to Ron Polk and took his recommendation for that job.
Now, what makes people think that the head coaches that turned that job down will be interested in coming to Mississippi State? At MSU, there is no HOPE scholarship. There is about a tenth of the high school baseball talent in Mississippi as their is in Georgia. The new head coach will be going head to head against programs that have the benefits that MSU doesn't have. What makes anyone think a coach will be willing to go into a job where he will essentially be hand cuffed?
I don't mind a national search, because I believe that in the end, Tommy Raffo will get the job whether it is a national search or not. I just think it would serve the program best at this point to go ahead and announce that Tommy is getting the job. </div>
Discuss.
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