What I chuckle about is what I am going to tell my son when he asks about the 3 retired numbers. Son, They all coached for a long time here at A&M and they combined to win one CWS game in 62 years.That's it, that is all you can say.
Mark Fairchild said:
I vote NO/!!! on RC!
I was going to say post mortem, but I don't think that POS deserves it even if he dropped dead tomorrow.Atreides Ornithopter said:
When do he honor Schloss's number
With a bonfire?
OilAg01 said:
I agree with you on this. We tend to value loyalty over results. It's in our blood but it also holds us back.
Please tell me at what point both you would have moved on from MJ and RC?a.froman said:
What I chuckle about is what I am going to tell my son when he asks about the 3 retired numbers. Son, They all coached for a long time here at A&M and they combined to win one CWS game in 62 years.That's it, that is all you can say.
I never would've hired him over MJ.jkag89 said:Please tell me at what point both you would have moved on from MJ and RC?a.froman said:
What I chuckle about is what I am going to tell my son when he asks about the 3 retired numbers. Son, They all coached for a long time here at A&M and they combined to win one CWS game in 62 years.That's it, that is all you can say.
jkag89 said:Please tell me at what point both you would have moved on from MJ and RC?a.froman said:
What I chuckle about is what I am going to tell my son when he asks about the 3 retired numbers. Son, They all coached for a long time here at A&M and they combined to win one CWS game in 62 years.That's it, that is all you can say.
We should be one of the top college baseball teams in the nation year in and year out. In my mind that translates to making Omaha (AND WINNING GAMES THERE) at least once every 3 or 4 years.jkag89 said:Please tell me at what point both you would have moved on from MJ and RC?a.froman said:
What I chuckle about is what I am going to tell my son when he asks about the 3 retired numbers. Son, They all coached for a long time here at A&M and they combined to win one CWS game in 62 years.That's it, that is all you can say.
Why not and who would have hired instead?Rudyjax said:I never would've hired him over MJ.jkag89 said:Please tell me at what point both you would have moved on from MJ and RC?a.froman said:
What I chuckle about is what I am going to tell my son when he asks about the 3 retired numbers. Son, They all coached for a long time here at A&M and they combined to win one CWS game in 62 years.That's it, that is all you can say.
But as I said, he always did just enough not to get fired.
I don't remember who the other candidates were in 2005 ... but I do remember being extremely disappointed that we hired Nebraska's pitching coach with no head coaching experience. It seemed at the time like a bad hire that Bill Byrne wanted to do simply because of his time at Nebraska and that a real coaching search wasn't actually conducted.jkag89 said:Why not and who would have hired instead?Rudyjax said:I never would've hired him over MJ.jkag89 said:Please tell me at what point both you would have moved on from MJ and RC?a.froman said:
What I chuckle about is what I am going to tell my son when he asks about the 3 retired numbers. Son, They all coached for a long time here at A&M and they combined to win one CWS game in 62 years.That's it, that is all you can say.
But as I said, he always did just enough not to get fired.
Uncle Wayne instead of MJ or RC? If MJ, Graham was just starting his remarkable run at San Jac so I doubt he was even on any D1 school's radar then and only Rice was willing to take a risk on him after many years of success at the junior college ranks.Rudyjax said:
Wayne Graham
Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but the dude never did anything other than just enough to keep from getting fired.jkag89 said:Uncle Wayne instead of MJ or RC? If MJ, Graham was just starting his remarkable run at San Jac so I doubt he was even on any D1 school's radar then and only Rice was willing to take a risk on him after many years of success at the junior college ranks.Rudyjax said:
Wayne Graham
If RC, while not happy with the RC hire I did not want Graham either. I did not think he would coach for that much longer (wrong about that) but with 20/20 hindsight Rice was on the downward slope of their peak years under Graham. Yes Rice did knock the Aggies out of supers twice (RC's 2nd and 3rd season) but after that Rice didn't make the CWS again and only made it as far as the Supers twice.
Had we hired Graham, people would've complained that we gave him a good retirement package, similar to what happened with Jimbo. There's just so much hindsight and people who are all too happy to spend other people's money on buyouts, coaching contracts, etc. for a niche sport. As much as I love college baseball, it's a niche sport that loses money.jkag89 said:Uncle Wayne instead of MJ or RC? If MJ, Graham was just starting his remarkable run at San Jac so I doubt he was even on any D1 school's radar then and only Rice was willing to take a risk on him after many years of success at the junior college ranks.Rudyjax said:
Wayne Graham
If RC, while not happy with the RC hire I did not want Graham either. I did not think he would coach for that much longer (wrong about that) but with 20/20 hindsight Rice was on the downward slope of their peak years under Graham. Yes Rice did knock the Aggies out of supers twice (RC's 2nd and 3rd season) but after that Rice didn't make the CWS again and only made it as far as the Supers twice.
RC had three Top 10 finishes in a row. That hardly seems just doing enough to keep from getting fired.Rudyjax said:Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but the dude never did anything other than just enough to keep from getting fired.jkag89 said:Uncle Wayne instead of MJ or RC? If MJ, Graham was just starting his remarkable run at San Jac so I doubt he was even on any D1 school's radar then and only Rice was willing to take a risk on him after many years of success at the junior college ranks.Rudyjax said:
Wayne Graham
If RC, while not happy with the RC hire I did not want Graham either. I did not think he would coach for that much longer (wrong about that) but with 20/20 hindsight Rice was on the downward slope of their peak years under Graham. Yes Rice did knock the Aggies out of supers twice (RC's 2nd and 3rd season) but after that Rice didn't make the CWS again and only made it as far as the Supers twice.
I too was disappointed with the hire of RC. I would not go quite so far to say it was a bad hire but if you were going to fire MJ in the manner in which Byrne did, I felt it was incumbent on him to have a slam dunk hire.Ag13 said:I don't remember who the other candidates were in 2005 ... but I do remember being extremely disappointed that we hired Nebraska's pitching coach with no head coaching experience. It seemed at the time like a bad hire that Bill Byrne wanted to do simply because of his time at Nebraska and that a real coaching search wasn't actually conducted.jkag89 said:Why not and who would have hired instead?Rudyjax said:I never would've hired him over MJ.jkag89 said:Please tell me at what point both you would have moved on from MJ and RC?a.froman said:
What I chuckle about is what I am going to tell my son when he asks about the 3 retired numbers. Son, They all coached for a long time here at A&M and they combined to win one CWS game in 62 years.That's it, that is all you can say.
But as I said, he always did just enough not to get fired.
He made the WS twice. He advanced out of regional 6 times in 15 years.jkag89 said:RC had three Top 10 finishes in a row. That hardly seems just doing enough to keep from getting fired.Rudyjax said:Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but the dude never did anything other than just enough to keep from getting fired.jkag89 said:Uncle Wayne instead of MJ or RC? If MJ, Graham was just starting his remarkable run at San Jac so I doubt he was even on any D1 school's radar then and only Rice was willing to take a risk on him after many years of success at the junior college ranks.Rudyjax said:
Wayne Graham
If RC, while not happy with the RC hire I did not want Graham either. I did not think he would coach for that much longer (wrong about that) but with 20/20 hindsight Rice was on the downward slope of their peak years under Graham. Yes Rice did knock the Aggies out of supers twice (RC's 2nd and 3rd season) but after that Rice didn't make the CWS again and only made it as far as the Supers twice.
I actually thought 2020 had a chance to be a really good squad. Frizzell would've been on that team as well as Blaum and a few others guys. And of course Miller, Lacy, and Roa.W said:
we've discussed this before...
but Childress was saved a few times late in his tenure (after 2017) by one or a combination of:
- football program turmoil
- athletic director turnover
- pandemic
looking back his 2018 and 2019 teams seriously underachieved based upon the number of players who made it to the show.
might be 5 or 6 players from each of those teams play in the bigs (once Lacy and/or Roa gets the call)
Money and support didn't mean anything in pre-NIL days when it comes to college baseball. "We have resources" is such a lazy, BS argument.Rudyjax said:He made the WS twice. He advanced out of regional 6 times in 15 years.jkag89 said:RC had three Top 10 finishes in a row. That hardly seems just doing enough to keep from getting fired.Rudyjax said:Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but the dude never did anything other than just enough to keep from getting fired.jkag89 said:Uncle Wayne instead of MJ or RC? If MJ, Graham was just starting his remarkable run at San Jac so I doubt he was even on any D1 school's radar then and only Rice was willing to take a risk on him after many years of success at the junior college ranks.Rudyjax said:
Wayne Graham
If RC, while not happy with the RC hire I did not want Graham either. I did not think he would coach for that much longer (wrong about that) but with 20/20 hindsight Rice was on the downward slope of their peak years under Graham. Yes Rice did knock the Aggies out of supers twice (RC's 2nd and 3rd season) but after that Rice didn't make the CWS again and only made it as far as the Supers twice.
He made regionals every year which is why he wasn't fired sooner.
There's no reason why we shouldn't make the supers 50% of the time, at minimum. We have the money and support.
IMO he earned a chance to right the ship after the three years years of missing the NCAAs. The next two seasons the Ags hosted a Regional (spit the bit against Cougar High) and advanced to the Supers by eliminating the defending National Champs in their own park to advance to the Supers. Even with that another season like 2000 thru 2002 he got the ax and agree it was time although how Byrne went about it was wrong.Ag13 said:We should be one of the top college baseball teams in the nation year in and year out. In my mind that translates to making Omaha (AND WINNING GAMES THERE) at least once every 3 or 4 years.jkag89 said:Please tell me at what point both you would have moved on from MJ and RC?a.froman said:
What I chuckle about is what I am going to tell my son when he asks about the 3 retired numbers. Son, They all coached for a long time here at A&M and they combined to win one CWS game in 62 years.That's it, that is all you can say.
If there is ever a stretch of 3 or more years without A&M hosting a regional it's a pretty glaring indicator that the coach is not on track to making Omaha every 3-4 years and that we are by definition not even a top 16 program. Given our resources and fan support, not top 16 at the very least is unacceptable. This statement, by the way, is true for essentially every sport at A&M.
RC had 16 seasons at A&M and made the CWS twice (0-2 both times). 2017 CWS appearance was flukey, especially when you consider the 2015 and 2016 teams that did not make it. Despite making the CWS in 2017, we did not host a regional in 2017...or 2018 or 2019. 2020 season was cut short for covid but from what I remember we didn't exactly have national championship aspirations for the season. Which led to a lame duck last year of contract year in 2021 which turned out, unsurprisingly to be a very poor year where we missed the NCAA Tournament. Talk about not being close to top 16.
So he was fired in 2021 and everyone agreed it was definitely time and how convenient that we didn't have to pay a buyout. Had he not made the 2017 CWS he likely would been fired at some point between 2017 and 2020 given the results that ended up being produced at that time. I would have fired him regardless of the 2017 CWS after 2018 or 2019 when it was pretty clear that we were going to continue to be a middle of the road SEC team under Childress.
Need I remind you that Texas fired their baseball coach last year following a regional appearance and a CWS appearance the year before. Something tells me Texas isn't going to retire Pierce's jersey. There is nothing wrong with having high standards for what results we consider excellent.
As far as MJ goes - following the 99 Big 12 championship/CWS appearance (also 0-2 there), we missed the NCAA Tournament in 3 consecutive years and then hosted a regional and lost two games to UH in College Station. It took 2 more years to read the writing on the wall that MJ's time had long since passed.
I was only pointing out that there were times in his tenure that he did more than the minimum to keep from being hired. Since you haven't answered (only Ag13 and a.froman have), at what point in their tenure's would you have fired both MJ and RC? I'm asking the question because many here state we kept both of them far too long yet rarely answer this question when I posit it.Rudyjax said:He made the WS twice. He advanced out of regional 6 times in 15 years.jkag89 said:RC had three Top 10 finishes in a row. That hardly seems just doing enough to keep from getting fired.Rudyjax said:Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but the dude never did anything other than just enough to keep from getting fired.jkag89 said:Uncle Wayne instead of MJ or RC? If MJ, Graham was just starting his remarkable run at San Jac so I doubt he was even on any D1 school's radar then and only Rice was willing to take a risk on him after many years of success at the junior college ranks.Rudyjax said:
Wayne Graham
If RC, while not happy with the RC hire I did not want Graham either. I did not think he would coach for that much longer (wrong about that) but with 20/20 hindsight Rice was on the downward slope of their peak years under Graham. Yes Rice did knock the Aggies out of supers twice (RC's 2nd and 3rd season) but after that Rice didn't make the CWS again and only made it as far as the Supers twice.
He made regionals every year which is why he wasn't fired sooner.
There's no reason why we shouldn't make the supers 50% of the time, at minimum. We have the money and support.
Tony Vitello has a pretty nice streak going at Tennessee right now. I'd say he's the actual gold standard right now. Along with Schloss who at TCU and then A&M is 9/20 years in a Super Regional including 7 CWS appearances and 4 straight at one point.Aggies2009 said:Money and support didn't mean anything in pre-NIL days when it comes to college baseball. "We have resources" is such a lazy, BS argument.Rudyjax said:He made the WS twice. He advanced out of regional 6 times in 15 years.jkag89 said:RC had three Top 10 finishes in a row. That hardly seems just doing enough to keep from getting fired.Rudyjax said:Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but the dude never did anything other than just enough to keep from getting fired.jkag89 said:Uncle Wayne instead of MJ or RC? If MJ, Graham was just starting his remarkable run at San Jac so I doubt he was even on any D1 school's radar then and only Rice was willing to take a risk on him after many years of success at the junior college ranks.Rudyjax said:
Wayne Graham
If RC, while not happy with the RC hire I did not want Graham either. I did not think he would coach for that much longer (wrong about that) but with 20/20 hindsight Rice was on the downward slope of their peak years under Graham. Yes Rice did knock the Aggies out of supers twice (RC's 2nd and 3rd season) but after that Rice didn't make the CWS again and only made it as far as the Supers twice.
He made regionals every year which is why he wasn't fired sooner.
There's no reason why we shouldn't make the supers 50% of the time, at minimum. We have the money and support.
Also, what team/coach makes the supers 50% of the time, at minimum? Even at TCU, everyone's gold standard, Schloss, made it to at least Supers 7 out of 17 seasons (41% of the time). Augie was close at Texas, I guess, going 9 out of 20 seasons. But still not 50%.
And that streak resulted in one Omaha appearance and 5 for more years granted to RC - none of the 5 years resulted in another top 10 finish. Too long for too little of results.jkag89 said:RC had three Top 10 finishes in a row. That hardly seems just doing enough to keep from getting fired.Rudyjax said:Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but the dude never did anything other than just enough to keep from getting fired.jkag89 said:Uncle Wayne instead of MJ or RC? If MJ, Graham was just starting his remarkable run at San Jac so I doubt he was even on any D1 school's radar then and only Rice was willing to take a risk on him after many years of success at the junior college ranks.Rudyjax said:
Wayne Graham
If RC, while not happy with the RC hire I did not want Graham either. I did not think he would coach for that much longer (wrong about that) but with 20/20 hindsight Rice was on the downward slope of their peak years under Graham. Yes Rice did knock the Aggies out of supers twice (RC's 2nd and 3rd season) but after that Rice didn't make the CWS again and only made it as far as the Supers twice.
Again, it would be the case of doing just enough not to get fired.Quote:
I don't think anyone is suggesting that if 5 years from now he's only made 2 super regionals (so <50%) he automatically deserves to be fired (although if he doesn't make it to the SR and beyond this year it will be extremely disappointing) - but I think if 5 years from now we are not clearly and consistently a top tier SEC baseball team then it will be about the time to start wondering. Regional hosts, Super Regional appearances, and CWS appearances are pretty good indicators of what tier you are in.
Again, I have said he did just enough NOT to get fired.jkag89 said:I was only pointing out that there were times in his tenure that he did more than the minimum to keep from being hired. Since you haven't answered (only Ag13 and a.froman have), at what point in their tenure's would you have fired both MJ and RC? I'm asking the question because many here state we kept both of them far too long yet rarely answer this question when I posit it.Rudyjax said:He made the WS twice. He advanced out of regional 6 times in 15 years.jkag89 said:RC had three Top 10 finishes in a row. That hardly seems just doing enough to keep from getting fired.Rudyjax said:Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but the dude never did anything other than just enough to keep from getting fired.jkag89 said:Uncle Wayne instead of MJ or RC? If MJ, Graham was just starting his remarkable run at San Jac so I doubt he was even on any D1 school's radar then and only Rice was willing to take a risk on him after many years of success at the junior college ranks.Rudyjax said:
Wayne Graham
If RC, while not happy with the RC hire I did not want Graham either. I did not think he would coach for that much longer (wrong about that) but with 20/20 hindsight Rice was on the downward slope of their peak years under Graham. Yes Rice did knock the Aggies out of supers twice (RC's 2nd and 3rd season) but after that Rice didn't make the CWS again and only made it as far as the Supers twice.
He made regionals every year which is why he wasn't fired sooner.
There's no reason why we shouldn't make the supers 50% of the time, at minimum. We have the money and support.