Despite earlier reports that Mississippi State had hired baseball coach John Cohen as its next athletic director to replace Steve Stricklin, Dan Mullen said during today’s SEC teleconference that he believes it’s “a completely false statement.”

“I think that’s a completely false statement,” Mullen said Wednesday afternoon during the teleconference. “No truth to that statement.”

Sid Salter, the Chief Communications Officer & Director of the Office of Public Affairs at Mississippi State University, also refuted the report, as did USA TODAY’s Dan Wolken:

Saturday Down South will continue to monitor this story as it develops.