Who will replace Chris Lemonis at Mississippi State?

Mississippi State has played 135 college baseball seasons and has won 2,853 games. That’s the 12th most wins in the history of college baseball. But the Bulldogs have just one national championship in their history.

And they fired the coach that led Mississippi State to its only national championship on Monday. The school announced that Chris Lemonis “has been relieved of his duties” (aka, he was fired) and a “national search to identify the program's next head coach is underway.”

Mississippi State considers itself (rightly so) as one of the premier college baseball programs in the country. It really is an attractive job. The Bulldogs play in the nation’s strongest conference, have the third-most wins amongst SEC teams, is in one of the south’s best college towns, and has a very passionate fanbase.

But the expectations are high. Lemonis only got three years after winning the 2021 national championship and won 232 games in seven seasons.

Whoever athletic director Zac Selmon hires will know what the expectations are and there are a lot of candidates that could do the job. Here’s our official candidates list to replace Lemonis, separated into different tiers.

SEC Candidates

Want to make a big splash hire? Do what Texas did last year and hire your rival’s coach. But there’s probably no offer Mississippi State could make to get Mike Bianco away from Ole Miss (no, Southern Miss doesn’t qualify, but its coach is included later on). So, do the next-best thing, hire a current SEC head coach.

The head coaches at Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Florida, LSU and Tennessee are likely untouchable (even if some fans on social media think Tony Vitello at Tennessee would come to Starkville).