Justin Parker opens up on how difficult it was for Mississippi State to play during coaching search

The Mississippi State Bulldogs have had a long baseball season full of ups and downs. It’s a year that has seen head coach Chris Lemonis fired midseason before the team went on a run to go to the NCAA Regionals.

The program’s coaching search has loomed over Mississippi State since Chris Lemonis was fired. However, that increased exponentially in recent days as rumors surrounding the search heated up. That became a very difficult distraction for interim head coach Justin Parker to manage.

“That’s a great question,” Justin Parker said following their elimination. “I mean, I got kids upset on the bus on Wednesday and Thursday. I got all kind of sh*t flying around. It’s just, I credit these guys for just staying focused and locked in. They love each other. They love playing for each other. I wish a lot of the rumors weren’t flying around. I wish there was a little bit more patience with the process.”

Justin Parker came into the season as the Mississippi State pitching coach until he was promoted to the interim role on April 28th. Since then, Mississippi State was able to go 11-4, including in the Tallahassee Regional. However, even with that success, the school was looking to make an outside, splash hire. That led to consistent rumors about what coach they could be targeting and those heated up just ahead of the announcement that the Bulldogs were hiring Brian O’Connor, who had previously been the head coach at Virginia.

“I get it, of course. We’ve been living in it for four or five weeks. What’s really tough is to watch these guys work the entire year starting in late July and August,” Parker said. “And to go through all that for a chance to be in this position that we were in this morning or even this afternoon, and to have that hang over us. It’s disappointing, but it’s the way it goes. I credit a lot of these guys for having the maturity and the foresight to understand that the most important thing is enjoying each other and spending a lot of time with each other and having fun playing the game. I’m proud for how they performed, how they behaved, and how they handled themselves.”

At the Tallahassee Regional, Mississippi State was able to beat Northeastern twice. However, two losses to host Florida State ultimately cost the Bulldogs.

“It’s just a distraction. It’s impossible to quantify how it impacted this weekend,” Parker said. “Other than you just manage your personalities and things where you’re trying to focus in on baseball and you got to deal with other stuff. It’s just the way it is.”

The future is now up in the air for the coaches and players at Mississippi State. With a new head coach incoming, likely looking to put his own stamp on the program, it will be interesting to see what this program looks like in the coming months.