John Cohen // Ron Polk // Tommy Raffo

Here’s what I think happened and why things blew up:

• Years ago Polk retired. He’d had an associate coach on his staff who he named as head coach: Pat McMahon. Polk went to a different office on campus and became an Asst. AD
• A couple of years later Polk takes a head coaching job at the University of Georgia.
• A couple of years after that McMahon get an offer from the University of Florida and takes it. He wants to bring long time MSU assistant Tommy Raffo with him
• Raffo decides to go to Florida with McMahon.
• Larry Templeton (the AD at MSU) hires Ron Polk to come back to Starkville as the head coach of MSU.
• Ron Polk has a meeting with Tommy Raffo (who is planning to go to Florida with McMahon) and convinces him to stay in Starkville.
• [And here is where I think the turning point is] I THINK that Polk promised Raffo if he would stay at MSU, then Polk would set him up to be the head coach of the MSU Bulldogs when Polk retired. Raffo said “okay.”
• But then there’s a new AD. And then there’s a very sub par season. And then it doesn’t look like Polk is able to name his successor like he did before.
• Someone else gets hired. And that made Ron Polk become very pissed.

Now who knows if that is really how it happened. But it makes perfect sense.