UVA Baseball coach Brian O’Connor texted his team Sunday to tell them that he is leaving the program to take the head coaching job at Mississippi State, according to reporting from The Cavalier Daily, the school’s student newspaper.
As I started working on this piece, Mississippi State confirmed the hire, announcing that it will formally introduce O’Connor at a public welcome event set for 7 p.m. CT on Thursday.
“Mississippi State represents everything I love about college baseball — tradition, passion and a relentless pursuit of excellence,” O’Connor said in a press release issued by the school late Sunday night.
“I’ve coached against this program and followed it closely for years. The atmosphere at Dudy Noble Field is nationally recognized as the best in the sport. I’m incredibly honored and grateful for the opportunity to lead a program with this kind of legacy and fan base. Mississippi State has set the standard in college baseball, and I can’t wait to get to work, build relationships and compete for championships in Starkville,” O’Connor said.
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It’s a head-scratcher of a move for O’Connor, who won a national title at UVA in 2015, and had led the program to seven College World Series appearances – and just signed an extension last June, on the eve of the seventh CWS appearance, that ran through the 2031 season.
That contract was to pay O’Connor $1.4 million annually, the eighth-highest salary in college baseball, and notably, more than what Mississippi State had paid the coach it fired last month, Chris Lemonis, who had won the national title there in 2021.
So, O’Connor is leaving a place where he had been lionized for a job where he could get fired if he loses two-out-of-three in back-to-back SEC weekends, likely for about the same amount of money.
“I have chosen to accept this opportunity because I need a new challenge and am excited about this next chapter of my life,” O’Connor wrote in a text to his team – which, come on, really, an effing text? – in which he noted that associate head coach Kevin McMullan, assistant coach Matt Kirby and Justin Armistead, associate athletic director for baseball administration, will be joining him in Starkville.
Notice that he didn’t mention that Drew Dickinson, the pitching coach under O’Connor for the past five years, was on the plane that left CHO Sunday night in the 9 p.m. ET hour.
“I want to thank each of you for your dedication, tireless work and loyalty during our time together,” O’Connor wrote to his guys, again, in a text; classy way to go out there. “You and the many players before you have made Virginia baseball what it is, as you have heard me say before — it is the players that make the program what it is.”
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This is quite the about-face from an O’Connor who, just three weeks ago, when his name first surfaced in connection with the Mississippi State job, emphatically denied any interest.
“It’s nothing I have any control over, but it’s an honor that people think that much about what has been done in this baseball program and that’s all it is. It’s all a result of the consistent success we’ve had in this baseball program,” O’Connor said back on May 8, in advance of a weekend series with Miami.
More from O’Connor from that May 8 avail:
“If it’s about developing players and getting to Omaha, why is there another job that’s any better? Because that’s all we care about. We care about developing the players, winning and running an elite program that they enjoy being part of and that will set them up for success in the rest of their lives,” O’Connor said.
The strength of that answer seemed to make the point moot.
O’Connor had been a target of top programs in the past – Texas, back in the mid-2010s, more recently, LSU, which had O’Connor’s mentor, Paul Manieri, personally lobby O’Connor to take the job, which is inarguably the Notre Dame Football/Duke Basketball job in all of college baseball, back in 2021.
So, O’Connor turned down Texas, he turned down LSU, but ultimately decided to leave Virginia for, of all places, Mississippi State, which, according to the Sportico.com finance database, was ninth in baseball spending in the SEC in 2024, which would seem to make being competitive that much more a challenge, and perhaps why Lemonis wasn’t able to build on the 2021 national title.
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The focus at Virginia, now, turns to, who’s next.
O’Connor’s decision to repatriate comes on the heels of the third season in the last seven in which his team failed to get an NCAA Tournament berth – his first 14 all got tourney berths, before failing to get spots in 2018 and 2019, and missing out this year after starting the season ranked as high as #2 in the preseason national polls.
In between the failed seasons, he had three of his four teams end their seasons in Omaha, the last two going two-and-out.
UVA Athletics is very much in a good position to be able to lure a big name to Charlottesville to build on the investments that have been made in the program in recent years – according to Sportico.com, the baseball program was 14th nationally in spending in 2024, at $6.0 million, and the O’Connor contract extension signed 50 weeks ago, the one paying him $1.4 million a year, made him the eighth-highest-paid coach in college baseball.
Earlier in the day on Sunday, I laid out the landscape of possible targets:
- Mark Wisikowski, Oregon: Wisikowski is 206-106 in five seasons at Oregon, with two Super Regional appearances. Budget: $5.3 million. Salary: $700,000.
- Wes Johnson, Georgia: Johnson is 86-33 in two seasons at Georgia. He’s a former Minnesota Twins pitching coach (2019-2022) who also had stints as pitching coach at Mississippi State, Arkansas and LSU. Budget: $5.1 million (19th). Salary: $700,000.
- Nick Mingione, Kentucky: Mingione is 293-190 in nine seasons at UK, with two trips to the Super Regionals and a College World Series appearance. Budget: $4.9 million (20th). Salary: $875,000.
- Mitch Canham, Oregon State: Canham, the youngest coach on this list, at 40, is 217-99 in seven seasons at Oregon State, with two Super Regional appearances. Budget: $4.6 million (25th). Salary: $625,000.
- Josh Holliday, Oklahoma State: Holliday is 468-251 in 13 seasons at Oklahoma State, with two Super Regionals and one CWS appearance. Budget: $4.6 million (26th). Salary: $770,833.
- Dan Fitzgerald, Kansas: Fitzgerald won 249 games in five seasons as a JUCO coach, was an assistant at Dallas Baptist and LSU, and is 99-72 in three seasons at KU. Budget: $4.1 million. Salary: $530,000.
- Cliff Godwin, East Carolina: Godwin is 431-213, with four trips to the Super Regionals, in 11 seasons. Budget: $3.8 million (36th). Salary: $600,000.
- Chris Pollard, Duke. Pollard is an Amherst County native who is 418-293 at Duke and won 244 games at Appalachian State. We don’t know what he makes, or what Duke spends on baseball, because Duke is a private school, and doesn’t have to release that information, but you can bet that the budget there isn’t close to comparable to what Virginia can spend, if only because Duke plays its home games on a glorified middle-school field.
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Chris Graham
