Augie throwing down his anchor....

No, everyone doesn't agree that it will take 3-5 years to rebuild the program. Only if a totally new staff, from out of this region is brought in and has to learn it first, for recruiting.

I have said why several times, even in this very thread. It seems even with this bold font, that it is sometimes feels like it's invincible.
 
longhorn47 said:
The problem with giving Augie 2017 is that he'll end 2016 with 1972 wins. Given recent history (see post #13), he won't make 2,000 wins next year, but will come close enough that folks will start clamoring to give him 2018 to reach the milestone. All that does is delay the desperately needed rebuild that everyone acknowledges will take 3-5 years. So if we want Texas Baseball to be relevant again before the next decade, we need to start IMMEDIATELY!
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^^^^
THIS....He'd need 28 wins next year to hit the magical 2000 wins number. Given the performance the past couple of seasons, he might, but 20 or so wins, again, leaves him short. The question then is how willing are the fans, AD, administration etc. to accept a likely continued downward slide for 2 more seasons?
 
If Augie secured 35 wins in 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2016...he'd already have 2,003 wins.

Isn't 35+ wins every year a little unreasonable? Not at Texas.

Gus won 35+ in 27 of 28 seasons from 1968-96
Augie won 35+ in 13 straight seasons from 1999-2011

His sitting 28 wins shy is every bit his own doing. If 2,000 was the goal, he should've produced the modest wins needed over the last 5 years to accomplish it.

It's not our responsibility to further dilute the program so he can stumble closer.
 
I did a little checking. Looking at the 2016 OOC schedule the Horns had losses to:
UNLV - 1 loss
Texas State - 1 loss
California - 4 losses
UCLA - 2 losses
aggy - 1 loss
Tulane - 2 losses
A&M Corpus - 1 loss
UH - 1 loss
Lamar - 1 loss
Stanford not included since we split 2-2
14 losses that I can find. Win half of the CAL and UCLA games and all the 1 loss games would be 11 wins and a 33 - 19 season. That would have left him 17 shy of the magical 2000 and bringing him back for 2017 would be practically a no-brainer. Even half of those would be 7 wins would set him at 29-23, still easier to give him the nod to come back for 2017 needing 21 or so wins to hit 2000.

If we lose to OSU and TCU administers the coup de gras tonight for a 22-32 finish, its hard to find support for letting him finish out his contract, especially needing 28 Ws to reach the 2000. So we'll see what happens. Also the team went 2-9 the last 11 games, that would have been unacceptable just a few years ago.
 
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Exept that OSU can only deliver one loss tonight, it's not a single elimnation tournament, I don't think they even exist in college baseball.

It's two four team brackets, with double elimination, the two bracket winners meet for the championship.

Never been a big fan of these type of tournaments, which were basically conceived for financial gain.

If a team can't get eligible for a regional in a four month season, they shouldn't be able to, in a 4-5 day tournament. Then possibly steal a regional bid from a team, that did the work, over the course of the regular season.

They also make pitching staffs have to do a lot of work ,over a short period of time. Arms are already tired, after the regular season, with the post season ahead, for some. This can lead to injury and dead arms. It's more opportunity for injury by key players. I just saw a Tech starter pull a hamstring, that could mean the end of his season.

I know it is what it is, that it's been around for a long time, but it's still not a good thing to me.

 
I guess free passes to conf tourney winners is the NCAA's way of making the tourneys as competitive as possible.

Without dangling that carrot, half of our tourney field would be playing for nothing but pride. Not much motivation coming off a failed season that's already lost.

I agree it's bunk when an unqualified tourney winner steals a bid from another team that earned at-large consideration during the season.

At the least require a winning final record for those who win conf tourneys to enter the playoffs. Texas would be the only team not to qualify after going 4-0.
 
The Tournaments wouldn't exist, without the winner getting that automatic bid. They were introduced to make more money, as they were in basketball, the more games the better.

This, after they were forced to reduce the amount of regular season baseball games, because the northern schools finally got enough support to do that. I remember when the California, Arizona, and some Texas schools would play 90-100 games in the regular season.

You have to remember, this was also before all the select baseball teams came into existence. College players didn't have all the wear and tear of playing baseball all year round, by the time they could pick up a bat. Pitchers weren't throwing breaking pitches in Little League much and need Tommy John surgery, by the time they reached the college level.

Getting rid of the automatic bid, would kill these tournaments.

Which would be fine with me and probably most college baseball coaches, unless they think it's the only way they can ever get in a regional.

Still seems funny saying, if Texas can get in a regional. Hosting a regional used to be as much a part of a Texas baseball season, as conference play was. The Horns haven't hosted a regional since 2011, not going to host one this year.

Regionals were created in the first year of Disch-Falk field in 1975, I believe. The first few were held in Arlington Stadium for this area. Schools weren't allowed to start hosting them yet.

Did you know that only 34 teams were allowed in seven regionals at this time, four teams to a regional, plus one regional of six teams. My first year at Texas, in 1977, the Horns went 53-9, for the season, finished second in the SWC, with a 17-7 mark. They didn't qualify for regional play. Then regionals were expanded, till they reached its present state.

Texas hosted it's first regional in 1979.

I'm certain this is the longest streak for Texas not hosting a regional, since that time. The longest I remember before now was 1997-1999.
 
This has been so painful to watch and I don't see how it can get turned around in one season. I wouldn't mind it if we played good baseball and lost but we haven't even played good baseball. As hubby put it so plainly - do like Florida did to Bobby Bowden (who was a legend as well) either retire gracefully or we fire you. Your choice, either way, you are gone.
 
Augie was hired to do a job, and he did it magnificently for a time. For whatever reason he is now unable to do the job. Nothing personal, just time for someone else to take over.
 
NBHorn7 said:
Hosting a regional used to be as much a part of a Texas baseball season, as conference play was.
Click to expand...

I absolutely remember this "we must always host a regional" state of mind.

This wasn't a product of an overachieving slice in time like football, it was the firm expectations of Texas baseball fans for the vast majority of the last several decades.

A really bad season for us used to be finishing with a record worthy of a #2 seed but counting on outbidding #1 seeds to host.

On the rare seasons we had to travel to a regional, UT fans were vocally displeased with the perceived letdown in coaching.

This is actually the first decade since the 1910's that anything less than a conference title was seen as a definitive failure.

More casual fans should really get acquainted (link below) with the long and storied history of Texas baseball to truly grasp how far we have fallen these last 5 years...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Longhorns_baseball

Before Augie the program hadn't gone 5 consecutive seasons without a regular season conference title since 1904.

Augie now has two of those 5-year stretches. His first 5 and last 5.
 
Like Mack, Augie seems to want more than just his paycheck. The paycheck is supposed to be for results NOW. I get giving someone a chance but for them to continue to be paid at the highest level means the trade-off is the pressure to perform.

Maybe he should offer to coach next year for free...

Mack didn't mind cashing his checks. He seemed to forget the reason he was being paid so much. It wasn't for the past. At least not in my book.
 
I know it's lacrosse, not baseball, but...

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/s...cavaliers-fire-men-lacrosse-coach-dom-starsia

Cavaliers lacrosse's Dom Starsia dismissed after 24 years, 4 national titles

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Hall of Famer Dom Starsia is out as Virginia's men's lacrosse coach after leading the Cavaliers to four national championships, 13 Final Fours and six Atlantic Coast Conference titles in 24 seasons, athletic director Craig Littlepage announced Monday.

Starsia, 64, leaves as the winningest coach at the Division I level. He compiled a 101-46 record in 10 seasons at Brown, his alma mater, and was 274-103 in his time with the Cavaliers. Virginia won the national championship in 1999, 2003, 2006 and 2011.

Starsia says he was notified by Littlepage of his intention to make a coaching change when the season ended.

Edit: Sorry, missed the last critical sentence of the news item...

Virginia finished 7-8 this season and 0-4 in ACC play. They won only one of 15 league games the last four seasons.
 
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NBHorn7 said:
From what I have come across, the "powers that be" want to make the change, but nobody wants to be the hatchet man.

They want Perrin to do it, but he doesn't want to. So Augie knows this and is turning up the pressure as far as he can, to make it as difficult as he can, for Perrin to do.

If Perrin decides that I don't want to do it, what are the higher ups going to do, fire him, this is your "catch 22." Besides it's just baseball, let,s wait and there won't be that big a deal made out of it, in the long run.

This is becoming "Mack Brown Part Deux," he wanted to stay and pass DKR's victory total, he wasn't going to go either. Finally the Regents told Powers, he either told Brown to go, or they would send him packing. They had agreed to let Powers stay on another year earlier, but that deal was about to be short lived, if he didn't get the job done.

Unfortunately, what we have here is an AD, with limited time left. He can refuse to make the change, with little to no chance of any repercussion.

Just more possible fallout, from hiring the wrong AD, a few years ago.

The opportunity to turn things around came when Harmon was let go. That went out the window, with the hiring of Nicholson, which has just made things worse.
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Harmon was responsible for not being able to get our big recruits on campus by misjudging their intents to go pro. The straw that broke the camel's back was that 2014 class....was it 14 recruits and only 2 made it to the 40 Acres?......bad judgment. (not to mention our holding our breath every time he'd wave a player around 3rd base)
 
hornsfanbaseball said:
I could be in the minority, but I would like to see the athletic department honor Augie's contract and let him retire after the 2017 season. This is a man who is a legend in NCAA baseball and has meant A LOT to the UT athletic program over the past 20 years. He took over for Cliff when the program was declining, and brought this program back to where it should be. I agree it's been rough sledding since 2011, but this is a program that was in Omaha in 2014 and won the big 12 tournament in 2015.

This year has been difficult to watch from all levels, and has been a perfect storm of bad defense, no timely hitting, and the pitching has struggled more than it has in the last 10+ years, but...this team is incredibly young and could be an Omaha team next year and the years after. Would making a change right now really make that large of a difference instead of just waiting one more year? Keep in mind with Augie leaving likely means an entire new staff at UT, and that usually means a 3-5 year transition period so what is the big hurry to make a change now instead of 2017?

I guess you have to ask yourself, is the candidate we want available now and won't be available after the 2017 season? I am guessing the candidates will still be lined up at the door in 2017, so I'd like to see us respect Augie and everything he has meant to the program and allow him to go out on his terms (end of his contract).

I agree this year has been unacceptable for UT standards, but everyone was calling for Augie's job back when he first started at UT as well, and all he did was make this program the nation's premier program in the 2000's. The assistant coaches here are well respected as well and among the best in the country, so why rush to make a change now with a change coming in 2017 anyways?
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Augie, is that you?
 
Pay no attention to him, he is makes no sense and never has, come to the baseball board's other threads, this is all he is about.
 
Yes, he should stay..one more year left on his contract....the most wins of any coach in the history of the game...2 national championships at Texas....and 27 wins from the 2,000 win-mark.
Of course, if he stays and wins 35+ games next year, then people will be begging him not to retire.....
I vote for a new hitting coach....I vote for Skip to be given 1 last shot at putting a pitching staff together (since most are underclassmen and will be back).
 
There he goes, no mention of the only two losing season's in the last 60 years.

Who didn't hire a hitting coach?
 
Well, Nicholson has been able to get our recruits to the campus where Harmon could not.
This year's "issues" are a direct result of Harmon's recruiting classes not making it to The Forty Acres. His last class had TWO show up to campus (out of 12 or 14)...thus he was canned.
When your recruits don't make it to campus, who's left to play?
 
Nicholson brought in like five JC transfers, that all started and were all total busts.

He can't even coach third base and now the fielding is the worst it's been in history, he's doing a bang up job.
 
That's why you need all three coaches out recruting hard, in today's college baseball.

Harmon didn't get out and recruit and neither did Augie.
 
NBHorn7 said:
That's why you need all three coaches out recruting hard, in today's college baseball.

Harmon didn't get out and recruit and neither did Augie.
Click to expand...

True. But It's Augie's job to bring in the recruits, whether it's him or his assistants. And Augie's job to coach' up and make game-time decisions. What happened? Buck stops with Augie.
 
NBHorn7 said:
That's why you need all three coaches out recruting hard, in today's college baseball.

Harmon didn't get out and recruit and neither did Augie.
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Did the #1 recruit in the state commit to Texas this year?
oh wait..i think so. As for bringing in some juco players, after Harmon blew his recruiting job, and had 2 of 14 commitments show up on campus, it was too late to recruit. Our only choice was to grab any jucos we could get.
We've got a young team this year...very young.....and I think most could turn into really good players. But when you're playing younger guys and injuries hit, things tend to go poorly...esp. when you have no backups----thanks to Harmon.
And, were I Augie, I'd pull back on letting Skip have 100% control of the pitching staff. Augie needs to start making those decisions on when to pull'em, how to use them----obviously, Skiip isn't doing a very good job this year. And I'm really beginning to question why some of the top pitchers in the state don't want to come into Skip's fold.
 
All that needs to be said is 153-124 (55% wins).

After tonight's ousting by OSU...that's Augie's lame record the last 5 seasons.

Even his first 5 years (170-127-1) produced better while retooling the team.

This last 5-year stretch was utter failure of the storied history of the program.

Enjoy the post-game interview tonight, the recent nightmare is ending.
 
This year's team was young and incredibly inconsistent, and didn't have the typical solid pitching and defense as the year's past that could carry UT to Omaha. The offensive numbers will always be down; it's a by-product of a home stadium that is terrible to hit in and an offensive scheme that bunts runner over too much to play for one run. When playing for one run, the pitching and defense have to be elite and in the past that was always the case with the staff's, but this year didn't meet that expectation. When the pitching and defense aren't superb, then the offensive struggles show even more because of the strategy to play for one run at a time.

There is hope...this team was young and Cooper is just getting healthy and I've read the recruiting class coming is in pretty good to compliment the young talent already on the team. If fans are expecting a new staff and the program to become more offensive and score 10+ runs a game and hit home runs, it just won't happen in this home ballpark regardless of the staff because of the college bats, balls, and home park. If you notice, UT always has much better #s on the road and

We have lost a recruiting step to the likes of A&M, TCU, and even Tech recently...but, I think we are kidding ourselves if we think that elite coaches like Tim Corbin or Kevin O'Sullivan want to come here right now. The coaches on the short list will still be available next year if they are available now, so really I don't see the point in pushing Augie out with 1 year left. Instead, I would like to see the strategy change a bit and allow the assistants to be more involved. Let Augie be the face of the program and let the assistant coaches try their hand and test their skills for at least one year, and then Augie can ride off in the sunset and we can make a program change and appreciate Augie for all of the great things he did for this baseball program over the past 20 years.

I know everyone is calling for Augie's job because of the record the last 5 years and while I agree it's been below progam standards, who do you think UT could go and hire this year that would be better? The list of elite coaches with Texas recruiting ties isn't as deep as you think, and I doubt the better one's would want to make the jump right now. Are people wanting Rocket or Swindell with zero coaching experience?
 
hornsfanbaseball said:
This year's team was young and incredibly inconsistent, and didn't have the typical solid pitching and defense as the year's past that could carry UT to Omaha. The offensive numbers will always be down; it's a by-product of a home stadium that is terrible to hit in and an offensive scheme that bunts runner over too much to play for one run. When playing for one run, the pitching and defense have to be elite and in the past that was always the case with the staff's, but this year didn't meet that expectation. When the pitching and defense aren't superb, then the offensive struggles show even more because of the strategy to play for one run at a time.

There is hope...this team was young and Cooper is just getting healthy and I've read the recruiting class coming is in pretty good to compliment the young talent already on the team. If fans are expecting a new staff and the program to become more offensive and score 10+ runs a game and hit home runs, it just won't happen in this home ballpark regardless of the staff because of the college bats, balls, and home park. If you notice, UT always has much better #s on the road and

We have lost a recruiting step to the likes of A&M, TCU, and even Tech recently...but, I think we are kidding ourselves if we think that elite coaches like Tim Corbin or Kevin O'Sullivan want to come here right now. The coaches on the short list will still be available next year if they are available now, so really I don't see the point in pushing Augie out with 1 year left. Instead, I would like to see the strategy change a bit and allow the assistants to be more involved. Let Augie be the face of the program and let the assistant coaches try their hand and test their skills for at least one year, and then Augie can ride off in the sunset and we can make a program change and appreciate Augie for all of the great things he did for this baseball program over the past 20 years.

I know everyone is calling for Augie's job because of the record the last 5 years and while I agree it's been below progam standards, who do you think UT could go and hire this year that would be better? The list of elite coaches with Texas recruiting ties isn't as deep as you think, and I doubt the better one's would want to make the jump right now. Are people wanting Rocket or Swindell with zero coaching experience?
Click to expand...
Why do you and other posters continue to act like this is such a difficult decision? Augie needs to go, and it doesn't matter who they get as long as he's not the coach. I don't care about all the excuses, he hasn't gotten the job done.
 
That #1 recruit will end up in MLB after the draft and won't be at Texas.
Augie can't fix things next year. He needs a hitting coach...Tell me what great hitting coach is going to leave a secure job to come coach at Texas for ONE season ????
The question is, Do the Texas board members put Augie and his personal goals ahead of the Texas Longhorn program and its fans ?
 
Did Augie have Texas ties ????? Why do we need Texas ties ??? California ties would work. $EC, ACC country ties would work.....Talent is everywhere, not just Texas.
 
If we wait, many of the coaches we want will sign extensions and it will cost us a mint to get them. Better to go after them now before the price tag escalates out of range.
 
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