J.B. Moss shares 'excitement' as new era of Aggie baseball is set to begin

An outfielder on Texas A&M's 2015 and 2016 Super Regional teams, J.B. Moss is very familiar with Jim Schlossnagle. As the former TCU head coach takes over in Aggieland, Moss discusses what it's like to see Schlossnagle in Maroon & White, the excitement of Opening Day and more.

Key notes from J.B. Moss interview

• I am a huge Aggie football fan now. I follow the recruiting updates and all of that. Since I've gotten out of school, it's something I've really gotten into.
   
• I'm excited for Opening Day tomorrow, but I'm also anxious, just like everyone else, about what Aggie baseball will look like with Jim Schlossnagle at the helm.
   
• It was great to catch up with A.J. Minter, and we've been best friends since freshman year of high school. We were both drafted by the same team, too. He transferred from Whitehouse HS to a small high school that I was at. Since then, we've been inseparable. Same high school, same college, drafted by the same team. We've been connected since we were 15 years old.
   
• Reunion weekend was a great weekend. There was a lot of buzz around the ballpark. It was great to meet coach Schloss and Nate Yeskie. We're all excited about what this new era of Aggie baseball will look like. Watching the scrimmage, the size of some of these players stands out. Maybe I haven't been around the game as much recently, but they look huge.
   
• Not going to lie; it is super weird to have Schlossnagle as our head coach. It has taken some adjusting to get used to it. There is no way around it: Schlossnagle broke our hearts my junior and senior years. If we didn't meet TCU in 2016, we still think we're playing for the whole thing, and as a team, we talk about that all of the time. Still, having former players around the program is super important to Schlossnagle, so he has been super warm to us.
   
• At this point, as a player, you're ready to see someone else and another uniform. You also can't wait to see the best fans in college baseball pack Olsen Field on Opening Night. You cannot wait for that first pitch.
   
• Every year in the fall, you feel good about your team. You get your preparation down. After those first few weekends and playing higher-level competition, you start seeing how you stack up. Three or four weeks in, you begin to feel whether or not you have a great team.
   
• Bonds are built on road trips. The first two or three weeks, being in Texas, the teams up north come to us. There is something about a road trip, being on a bus and a plane, in a hotel and going out to restaurants together that is special. It's a different camaraderie on the road than at home.
   
• We're on live radio, so I have to leave bits and pieces out of this story. Hunter Melton was in a bases-loaded situation at Pepperdine. He check-swung but got rung up. I didn't appreciate the call very much and said something to the umpire on my way to my position in right field. I got tossed and had to spend the next day watching the game from the bus by the ocean. Not my finest moment.
   
• All of the Opening Days are memorable because it's a different energy than any other day of the season. Seeing the fans for the first time is always fun. In my senior year, I had two triples on Opening Day. In my junior year, A.J. Minter was starting against Dartmouth, and it was freezing. The first pitch on the board was 97 mph. Three pitches in, a guy turns around a 97 mph fastball and almost takes A.J.'s head off. That woke us up real quick.
   
• The optimism has to come from all the new talent that's coming in. Jack Moss and Troy Claunch are going to be big assets from the transfer portal. Those pieces give us hope. There isn't much experience coming back. We'll have to be patient with them, but I'm excited to see the talent come together.