That caused the team to lose games like they did?

I would like to know specifics on how this coach lost games?

Personally I think the injuries is what killed us not coaching….. but a lot of you think it's the coach…. So what specifically did he do to cause losses

Note: dont pull any of that football coaching comparison bs either…. FB coaches call plays and practice execution of said plays.

I'll start. Mishandled pitching in the 9th inning to lose game 1 against Bama. Who's got the next one?

He taught them how to pop up bunts and run outside the baseline

First year HC with less than 10 years of any kind of coaching experience.

That's it.

Everybody says "I could coach that team to a championship", but actually coaching a a championship caliber team to a championship is really hard.

1876er said:

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Everybody says "I could coach that team to a championship", but actually coaching a a championship caliber team to a championship is really hard.

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this statement applies to a lot of TexAgs posters across all sports

rgag12 said:

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He taught them how to pop up bunts and run outside the baseline

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i bet they worked on that every day just to get it correct for the last few games

Cmon man

That happened several games, tu, mizzou etc. Enough times that it cost us post season. Also on the PC. Sloppy team play equal lack of preparedness. Bad baserunning. Players getting worse, especially in hitting (his specialty). Maybe he should focus on Aggie baseball, not son's travel team.

Not advocating one way or the other but the Buck has to stop somewhere. Even being a novice head coach Earley had to know that a poor season would put him immediately on hot seat if not in a position of outright dismissal. We took a huge risk hiring him and believing he was up to the task. If he had any doubts he shouldn't have accepted the job.

No one knows expect the guys in the dugout. I honestly think it boils down to discipline. So many of the mistakes made were just sloppiness and lack of focus. I think a lot of that comes from poor practice habits; sure seemed like the players were sleep walking early in the year during non conference where we lost to far inferior teams in terms of talent. There were rumors of guys out partying early in the season. All results of a coach who's more friends with the players than coach. This is my speculation but seems to make sense to me

I'm with the lack of bunting (pop-ups) theory. Seems like he relied so much on the batting power that fundamentals were not in focus.

Bad fundamentals, Terrible defense, head scratching decisions with personnel and bullpen arms, completely changed the approach at the plate from 2024 which resulted in a terrible hitting ballclub, couldn't get the locker room mentally prepared.

Injuries definitely contributed. Any decent coach still has this team hosting though and certainly in the postseason. There was enough talent.

Also. Is it a coincidence that the most disappointing fb seasons and baseballs seasons seem to coincide with a bunch of injuries? In jimbo's case, players weren't practicing and disciplined at all? Were all these baseball guys this year fully preparing in the offseason or were they spending some of that NIL $$ and having fun? Heard some of them skipped fall ball for "injuries" then others basically showed up on opening day hurt. No idea what actually happened but certainly curious circumstances.

Glass half full

We will not listen to players with regards to who to hire ever again.

the Arizona game Friday night at the Astros Classic

put a guy in left field as a defensive replacement...who couldn't play the position

and a fly ball to begin the top of the 9th was played into a double (and the tying run)

It was the lack of fungo golf.

Cracks me up how clueless so many are. He gets the blame for some of the mishandled pitching situations that cost us some games but if you think he's responsible for guys screwing up fundamental plays they have learned since little league give me a break. A D1 SEC hitter shouldn't need to be taught how to bunt…yet I know for a fact they do still practice isn't. That's not on coach. They aren't coached to forget to cover a base. They aren't coached to not throw strikes. They aren't coached to make bad baserunning mistakes. Believe it or not all of that stuff gets practiced correctly. Sometimes players screw up. There's a lot to blame Earley for without the nonsense.

His defensive player choices seemed like total guesses many times.

Still my fav was the last game. Pinch hitting on a 1-1 count. At lease he did not put Schott in on an 0-2 count.

Very fitting end to his tenure.

Gyles Marrett said:

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Cracks me up how clueless so many are. He gets the blame for some of the mishandled pitching situations that cost us some games but if you think he's responsible for guys screwing up fundamental plays they have learned since little league give me a break. A D1 SEC hitter shouldn't need to be taught how to bunt…yet I know for a fact they do still practice isn't. That's not on coach. They aren't coached to forget to cover a base. They aren't coached to not throw strikes. They aren't coached to make bad baserunning mistakes. Believe it or not all of that stuff gets practiced correctly. Sometimes players screw up. There's a lot to blame Earley for without the nonsense.

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Cracks me up how you don't think the head coach is responsible for players being locked in and ready to play. Situational awareness is 100% on the head coach. Pair that with the substantial rumors about the team partying and not taking this season seriously all off-season. It's not a coincidence mistakes were repeatedly made and that is actually on the head coach.

Gyles Marrett said:

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Cracks me up how clueless so many are. He gets the blame for some of the mishandled pitching situations that cost us some games but if you think he's responsible for guys screwing up fundamental plays they have learned since little league give me a break. A D1 SEC hitter shouldn't need to be taught how to bunt…yet I know for a fact they do still practice isn't. That's not on coach. They aren't coached to forget to cover a base. They aren't coached to not throw strikes. They aren't coached to make bad baserunning mistakes. Believe it or not all of that stuff gets practiced correctly. Sometimes players screw up. There's a lot to blame Earley for without the nonsense.

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All of these are mental mistakes. Coach did not provide an environment of accountability. You can't be friends and coach.

Mentally weak coaches develop mentally weak teams.

The coach is responsible for the teams play

The coach is analytics based which is great. However it was plain to me that we were overindexed on analytics to the point of failure.

Baseball dictates you get the runner home on third with less than two outs or you fail. We failed many times at this most recently in our final game of the season.

It doesn't matter what someone's spin rate or velocity is if they walk the first few batters of the inning when they come in in relief

I am not sure what our starting pitchers were focused on this year analytics wise but they grossly underperformed. All three of them made every start this season which is a huge boon however they rarely pitched deep and I'm pretty sure they didn't have winning records.

I will say that sorrell and grahovac didn't contribute much this year and that has nothing to do with earley. Teams preseason ranking was based upon full season from those two and laviolette, henseler, and Kent

The team was poorly put together from a fielding perspective which likely didn't help the aforementioned starting pitchers. It's like someone playing fantasy baseball put them together. Last years team had a great shortstop and we put last years second baseman at SS.

The relievers not throwing strikes and the hitters inability to get runners home in any way other than the home run were the biggest for me. I don't think it will get any better because I think he is overindexed on analytics and not in a good way.

Team was way overrated at preseason 1, but enough talent to be top 20.

We got lucky in many scenarios last yr, but that's where coaching comes in. Earley was inconsistent throughout the season and made plenty of head scratching decisions (which appeared worse when most of the time they didn't parlay into a run or stop or win).

Biggest issue was inexperience and couldn't keep team from pressing under pressure (starting w preseason over hype). Watched this team fold under pressure when it really mattered and play loose when they had nothing to lose (as had already lost). It's the underlying theme of the whole season (and piss poor pitching relief).

Losing home games to NMSU, Mizzou, and Tx st, all dog poop teams.
Take those 5 losses away now we are 33-22, with an RPI of 30 or lower.

I agree with a lot of you guys assessment that coaching can effect how a team plays
And a lot of you have good examples

But this team isn't new to winning
They have been there and done that
They already know what it takes to get there

Coaching can't take that away….. hence why I don't think it's coaching IMO

I still think injuries killed this team, players getting drafted and then throw in a down year on a few players and this is what you get

Coaching can't fix that over night

I watched a lot of teams make bad plays and tons of mistakes and still make it into the tournament
But they were all mostly healthy

This team kicked butt down the stretch and showed me they were getting there $@! together at the end.
I saw a different team 2nd half of year and I attribute that to coaching….. if he really was a bad coach this team would have never made that run they did against those top teams and playing Texas as tight as they did

Earley was in a difficult situation. He was their hitting coach/friend the last few years and didn't need to be the disciplinarian. It was probably hard to be the disciplinarian when you've been their friend and he may learn from that with different kids coming in. He made his share of mistakes for sure, but mistakes he'll learn from. And why are people clamoring for O'Connor? He was preseason number two, an experienced coach, and missed the postseason. Earley needs another year and for the naysayers, no it won't set Aggie baseball back years if there's no replacement this year.

At this level, baseball is more of a mental than physical game. Yes, you need speed, pitching, and all that, but most of the plays don't require exceptional athletic ability compared to the other 200 teams playing D1 baseball. The difference is the mind game. Schloss is a master of that. It's why he beat us in a Super three years in a row and why he's got the sips winning the conference and the No. 2 overall seed in his first year. It's why he got us to the CWS in his first year. It's why Augie Garrido was such a great coach.

It's also why I was never a Childress fan. In 2008, the team collapsed against Nebraska in B9 of Game 2, and at that point I knew. We also lost G3 and got swept by the sips the next weekend. Fortunately, we were so far ahead before the NU G2 we still tied for the conference championship, but it shouldn't have been that close and we should have won the title outright.

Childress always spoke about "outworking" everyone else. In baseball, whether you physically "outwork" someone doesn't matter to me. I want to know about the mental side of things. Childress was/is a great pitching coach, but I never thought he was great HC material after that NU Game 2.

I saw a lot of mental mistakes from the team this year. Very small, but they happened way too often. That tells me Earley does not have command of the mental side of the game. Maybe he will in the future, but I'm 51 and getting impatient.

If the coach isn't responsible/accountable for the players development, the players focus, and the results of the games, why are so many people worried about the head coach being replaced?

A&M lost 3 of its last 4 conference series

the team was not playing great down the stretch

4-6 in their last 10 games

6-9 in their last 15 games

pointer74 said:

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Coaching can't take that away….. hence why I don't think it's coaching IMO

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I disagree. If you're not careful, complacency sets in, especially with a bunch of kids who start thinking their farts smell like roses. In fact, it's almost inevitable. It's human nature. If you don't have a HC that understands that, you're in trouble.

Think about the similarities between Schloss and Nick Saban. Both never happy. Both always on guard against complacency.

here's an interesting stat...

A&M was 3-4 in non-conference games vs. the field of 64

2-1 vs. Cal Poly
0-1 vs. Arizona
0-1 vs. OKState
0-1 vs. UTSA
1-0 vs. Houston Christian

so the Ags did not play great outside the SEC either

is that the players or coaches?

pointer74 said:

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This team kicked butt down the stretch and showed me they were getting there $@! together at the end.

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I don't know what "stretch" you're talking about, but Missouri has 3 conference wins--all against us. We got swept by Missouri AT HOME in the second-to-last series, perhaps the worst baseball team in the history of the SEC since we joined, and maybe ever. Then we lost the series to Georgia on the road. There's no shame in the latter, but great shame in the former.

I truly think a lot of the problems this year were mental.

I mean we've seen this team be good. Real good. But it always seemed to be high highs and then low lows again.

SHSU-AG said:

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Earley was in a difficult situation. He was their hitting coach/friend the last few years and didn't need to be the disciplinarian. It was probably hard to be the disciplinarian when you've been their friend and he may learn from that with different kids coming in. He made his share of mistakes for sure, but mistakes he'll learn from. And why are people clamoring for O'Connor? He was preseason number two, an experienced coach, and missed the postseason. Earley needs another year and for the naysayers, no it won't set Aggie baseball back years if there's no replacement this year.

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O'Conner has been to the CWS 3 of the last 5 years, 5 of the last 11 years, 7 of the last 16 years, and has a championship. Good enough for me. In fact, I'd be surprised if you could find a coach with that many appearances in the same time frame. I'm too lazy to do the research.

Missouri