John Cohen’s Big Opening Weekend

John Cohen was announced as Mississippi State’s 17th athletic director on Friday, and he had a nice start to his tenure.

On Friday afternoon, Dr. Mark Keenum announced MSU head baseball coach John Cohen has been hired to replace Scott Stricklin as the school’s athletic director. At the press conference, Cohen said he had always had great interest in becoming an athletic director. You could tell he was very excited about the opportunity (although he is presumably taking a pay cut).

Like we are all a bunch of idiots, Dr. Keenum and Sid Salter proclaimed that it was a “comprehensive national search” and it was not finalized until last week despite media reports. They are holding firm to this despite Cohen’s name being the only one mentioned during the entire “search process”.

Coach Cohen then announced that his first priority was finding a new head baseball coach….even though we all new Andy Cannizaro had already agreed to take the job. The patronizing of the MSU fan base continued on Saturday as you’ll see below.

The MSU baseball team roasted former Coach Cohen that evening:

Then on Friday night at the Hump, Ben Howland’s team kicked off the 2016-17 season with a 78-63 exhibition win over Delta State. Leading scorers:

• Mario Kegler: 18 points
• Aric Holman: 15 points
• Quinndary Weatherspoon: 12 points

Also that night, Andy Cannizaro makes his way into the Diamond Dawg locker room…..

Cannizaro was officially announced on Saturday morning.

Later in the morning, the gridiron Dawgs hosted a morning tilt vs. Texas A&M. Mississippi State honored the Veterans with their black jerseys in stars and stripes for POW/MIA. Members of the military where on hand and there was a fly-over. Here’s a really cool picture from Friday’s practice run:

The football game could not have gone better as MSU beat No. 4 A&M 35-28. What a start to the John Cohen era! The 2016 SEC Champion Diamond Dawgs were honored at the game….

After the game, Dan Mullen decided to comment on all the MSU fans – 100,000 he says – who don’t believe he cares about this team or Mississippi State….

Yeah, Mullen is happy to have the job at Mississippi State….because it pays $4.2 million per year. But he still has one foot out the door. That’s why he continually interviews for other jobs in the offseason and hired a new agent last spring. We know you care about winning, Dan, because it’s your only ticket to a “big time” job. It was a great win on Saturday and you’re a still a great coach. But you can stop telling us how committed you are to Mississippi State because it’s not the truth.

Overall, it was quite a fun weekend for John Cohen. Let’s see how he does in the A.D. chair. His first hire, Andy Cannizaro, will be be announced at a press conference on Monday afternoon.