Had Enough

The environment is part about your opponent. SEC opponents take that up a notch for a variety of reasons. Texas fans will always be a little on their hands. As for facilities, I’m going on what’s been stated here. Could be Pierce influence, at least in part. As far as Texas talent, we’re no doubt top 5. There also are a lot of competitors here. I’d bet the general perception is that we’re a consensus top 1-2 state. Theres no reason we can’t or shouldn’t expect to be amongst the very best programs. And in spite of a modest this year, I believe we’ve been top 5 since 2020. Quite a few get their drawers all bunched because “our pitching sucks” without considering the relativity. We lost 3 dudes we were counting on heavily. That’s the same for the program at large. It’s unrealistic to attain the same ratios in a more competitive environment. The move to the SEC is significant. It opens up more of the country for guys wanting to play in the best conference. It should open up more southeast guys who could get trips to play at home. More exciting environments. And probably more dollars we can offer to put in their pockets.

I wonder how many conference foes from the old SWC made trips to the CWS. A&M, Tech, TCU, and I’d guess Rice and Baylor have made more trips since 2000 than before that time. If we’re counting tourney champs over regular season titles, there’s flaws there. For the new coach, what are your standards? And over what period of time? A title or trip 70% of the time, 50% of the time to Omaha, win a national title every 6 trips. Is that That the expectation? Our facilities aren’t top 10. Our environment is not consistently top 10. Our NIL is top 5-ish. I don’t think our state is best in terms of top end talent, which is really where we lack talent. At least now, we are more competitive in recruiting and environment. The talent acquisition component has likely improved with the conference change as well. We are expecting results that no other program or coach has attained. And we’re expecting them to do it with less than the very best resources so it seems.

Look forward to the story of the off field antics.

This is an interesting lead in as they were worse on the pitching front than we were this year. Looks like half a run per game worse. And they had a very Pierce-like super regional opponent in middling Big 12 team.

I could not see what you were questioning about my original post so I responded in general terms. i did not question whether Balcones wants to retain Pierce. I assume he does however. I left open whether he thinks Pierce is the best option. I’d say Vitello and Jarrett are upgrades but maybe not attainable. Johnson and Bakich. Not convinced they’re upgrades. I’d also like to see how Pierce does with the backdrop of the SEC.

Yeah really. I visit two boards on this site. BO&W shits on players, coaches and posters on both boards. There’s a number of posters that showed up mid way thru the season and began to shit on the team. I don’t recall Balcones anywhere but here and from what I recall the combative nature ramped up as the bullshit ramped up. And that’s not just BO&W. I’m sure as shit not going to be anti-positivity in the sea of negativity. I watch most of the games. I follow all season long. It’s not tune in once basketball is over or between softball games. I assume Pierce is gone but honestly I’d like to see him to stick one more year for several reasons including watching everyone here squirm. And I find some humor in Balcones continuing to fight. I’m also open to behind the scenes stuff that I’ll never know the specifics of that result in a change.

You mean the next coach of your Texas Longhorns.

This is pretty odd to me. I’m not even sure how big a fan Balcones is of Pierce. Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought Balcones was active on the board from the outset of the season unlike some who just came around to shit on Pierce and the program. And hell much of what Balcones says is accurate. Certainly to an extent, any defense of Pierce is a defense of the program. That doesn’t mean a poster believes he’s best for the program (maybe Balcones does - don’t know). Until he’s not, Pierce is a representative of the program. i recall once you posted that your board persona was quite different than your persona here. That makes sense now. The bullied has become the bully. It’s alright bro. Someone loves you.

We don’t need anyone afraid of competition anyway.

I’ve harped on the SEC element. Any coach without that backdrop is hindered. It’s dollars. It’s facilities. It’s environment. It’s also perception. Thanks to Burnt Orange & White for highlighting that the tradition built 20 plus years ago has less impact than the aforementioned factors. Pierce has more upside heading to the SEC than exists in the Big 12. We’ve been the best, prob most consistent team since his arrival. Texas in general as well as the next coach have higher upside because you remove one of the bigger restrictions to competing on a level field. A quick glance shows Texas as the #3 recruiting class for 2024, which I believe is much better than previous years. If that’s the case, what’s different? Is it an SEC impact? Is it a 60 year old man changing his philosophy? In either case, it’s a perceived positive. Maybe it’s luck or NIL coming to the forefront. No matter who is coaching next year there really is no excuse to not be competitive.

Supposedly his dad, Morehouses and someone else were difficult to deal with. I’m not sure I’d read that Daly was told to get the hell out because of it.

This is a bit of the behind the scenes stuff that makes me wonder. My assumption was that he could return but had no guarantees of play time. He had a reasonably long leash last year. It’s hard to know how many fans wanted him gone from our program. The vocal ones on this board were amongst those so it seems like a high majority wanted him out. He’s played 3rd and batted 5th much of the year. I believe he’s set personal bests in OBP, slugging, stolen bases, and sacrifices. It worked out for him. I haven’t looked into the UK coach’s background, but they made the CWS in rather easy and quiet fashion. His name has been thrown out here some.

I’d agree with this. People didn’t judge Augie on early season or non-conference success. He’s judged on his national championship efforts. Now you compile a ton of wins on the road to this. As Texas coach, I always felt he was preparing his teams for that final push. If we only dogpile in Omaha, those are not won on the backs of mid week games.

I think age is relevant. I wouldn’t hire someone on the verge of 60 and not overly inclined at 50+. Pierce at the time of his hiring would probably be the oldest you’d want to hire. My points are that you are knocking one guy for actual accomplishments when there’s similar data available for your alternatives. Then picking and choosing when history starts. It has not been discussed here, but it’s a valid question and one people likely have no clue about. But Texas (43) high end talent trails CA (79) and FL (67) and is closer to GA (39) than those two. That was from an article in 2020 from the prior decade about 1st round picks in the draft. I suspect that held since 2020 too. That talent is not going to be drawn to the Big 12. We will acknowledge that in football but ignore it here. I don’t know the answer as to how impactful it is, but that’s one of the most important questions here. How limiting was the Big 12 in getting players here? I’m quite confident in saying LSU wins nothing without Paul Skenes. Hell, LSU got a top talent from the ACC. Why would a guy like Skenes (or White) take less money to play in the Big 12 over the SEC or the ACC? That’s the type of player we should have more access to now. And you were the one introducing facilities and atmosphere.

Stick with the age narrative then. It is irrelevant whatever Pierce was at the time of his hiring.

No. But they should be pissed because historically they are elite. Right? The amount of twisting and turning is quite high on this thread. Take Bakich. Got some great stuff on the resume. But he got swept in the super. He also skated by the mighty High Point by 1 run in the regional. Also beat Coastal Carolina by 1. Go look at their non-conference schedule. I guess Xavier is badass cause other than midweeks versus UGa and KSU, it’s weak. As to his Michigan World Series appearance is that a one time event or spectacular coaching? Johnson. As referenced previously, his best year at Zona was probably year 1. Year 4 was very mediocre. This year at LSU was mediocre for their standards. LSU seems to be the #1 program in terms of NIL. Vitello. Did he lose to Tenn Tech or USF to allow us to walk into the CWS? Is he 0-1 versus Pierce in the CWS? On the surface from a program development standpoint, he’s the best option. I’ve read here that our atmosphere and facilities are not top 10. Our NIL is clearly very good but also clearly not the best. It’s been stated certain transfers have preferred the SEC and presumably the ACC. I’d assume for incoming frosh this is similar. So we should expect a top 5 program because of our history but other programs histories are irrelevant because. There is a leveling of the playing field in joining the SEC that Pierce has not had the privilege of that every SEC coach currently enjoys. And that the ACC does to a lesser extent. History does matter. But it is a very different era than what Gus dealt with. And different from Augie too. Many fans ignore that except when it fits their narrative. There are likely better fits than Pierce, but the resumes will not necessarily reflect that. Game management won’t be markedly different. It’s more the behind the scenes stuff that make the fit better, but it’s also this stuff that the typical fan doesn’t really know.

It looks like years 3 and 4 at Arizona were substantially worse than years 1 and 2. Year 1 was the best while year 4 was the worst. ”Johnson's fourth season in 2019 produced one of the highest-scoring offenses in the nation, a fourth-straight winning season, and a winning conference record. Arizona ended the 2019 campaign with a 32-24 record and a 15-14 mark in Pac-12 play. The club finished the year on a 10-game win streak and came away victorious in 13 of their last 14 games.” Since the offense was high scoring, I assume the pitching was not so good. At LSU he had Crews and bought White and Skenes. This year he didn’t make it out of the regional. In year 1 at LSU, they improved 2.5 games over the prior year. In the 2023 draft in the top 100 picks, there was Skenes, Crews, Floyd, Taylor and Morgan from LSU. As best I can tell, Skenes is the only one Johnson brought in. Looking at the numbers, it’s difficult to say how much Johnson positively influenced them, and you can throw White in there too.

So our environment is lacking, our facilities are not top notch, our NIL may be top 5-ish but is not #1, our conference lagged the top 2 conferences in several ways. So given that we shouldn’t really expect CWS titles.

It was. I’ve watched little softball this season so the games versus the Aggies and OU didn’t come off as a well coached, well disciplined team.

None of those 4 even played to their seed either.

So did those good Big 12 tourney runs help or hinder OU and OSUs regional tourney efforts?

How many conference teams were quad 4 in those years?

i guess we can return to the narrative that the Big 12 sucked even though several have outplayed their seed this weekend. We were a good team that played hard. The pitching was more consistent and likely more effective than the hitting.

Go on.

I’m sure I was included in this thought. This regional was always going through the Aggies and having to beat them twice in all likelihood. There’s no bonuses for going 2-0 against them.