When Buzz Williams left a couple months ago, some donors stepped up to support making a huge offer to Chris Beard to try to pull him from Ole Miss. The reported offer from A&M was something like $7 million per year for 5-6 years plus substantial NIL commitment and package to hire assistants. Basically, just in Year 1 for the 2025-2026 season Texas A&M was willing to spend $15 - $17 million on Men's Basketball to make Chris Beard happy.

Now Beard ultimately chose to stay at Ole Miss but the fact remains that paying off Jimbo is not so crippling that A&M can't find money to make a strong move at a guy that they really like. Again, see the aggressive move that A&M just recently tried making for Men's Basketball to get Beard.

IMO, if A&M brass thinks they can land a big fish for baseball that excites the donors, they will pull the trigger. Finding the money wouldn't be a problem.

Early is a likeable guy but was an experimental hire and the experiment catastrophically failed going from pre-season #1 to missing the post-season. Which is indefensible unless you somehow latch onto hope that this was 'growing pains' of a head coach with zero head coach experience trying to learn on the job. But the SEC conference is the worst conference in the country to try to be learning on the job like that. Ironically, the series wins vs Vols, LSU, and Arky reinforced how talented yet significantly underachieving this A&M team was. Which points squarely at the lack of coaching experience.

He should have been fired after the second Mizzou game. The team has quit on the coach they forced us to hire. There is no reason he should be coaching now except our AD doesn't care about wins and losses.

Agryan00 said:

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There is more to coaching than filling out lineup cards and making pitching substitutions. I did not see alot of strategy from Earley. Examples is trying to drive pitch counts against a short staff in Texas. This way when you get to Sunday they have nobody left or even better to the end of the game the releivers are getting tired because there throwing 50 pitches not 25. You do this by taking alot of first pitches, likely strikes, and defending the plate in 2 strike counts, not by trying to hit HRs in 2 strike counts. If you want to take the free swing approach and ambush first pitch strikes you have to pick pitches and not miss when you get them, whether that be breaking balls or fastballs on the in inner half or outer half. Can also take the small ball approach like Kentucky, steal and put pressure on defenses. Watching or hitters I can't say I understood the approach besides hit the long ball. Which is not a high percentage strategy.

Also Earley has no feel for the game. He has no idea when to pull a pitcher and or leave one in, who to sub and when. He regularly forgets to make running substitutions. Also when to make a mound visit and when not too. He usually stands on that top step and does the golf clap like please get me out of this. Also he does not seem to understand how to work the umpires. When to get onto them, when ask them, and when to lobby for the next 50/50 call.

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pretty dang good post and hard to disagree. I think that's where a lot of us are, having watched very strategic, disciplined clubs out-play more talented squad like A&M in the 2000's and through the Childress era, we spent the last 2 years finally being that team that had strategy and talent. It's so hard to watch us play sloppy and with a strategy no more complicated than asking your talented group to just 'perform'. It's like watching PG tournaments all over again. Hitting home runs is not a strategy. "Just throw strikes", is not a strategy. "Baseball is all about failure", is not a strategy. The sad thing is that Earley does not appear to have the depth of experience to even find a different path forward. He seems tacitly oblivious to what needs to be done to right the ship.

Keeping earley

Dude turned our baseball program into complete dog ****

It is actually kind of impressive how Earley has managed to take the consensus pre-season #1 team to not even making a regional. He seems like a nice guy, but that is quite the feat.

tjack16 said:

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Keeping Earley at the time was a good move given the roster you potentially had returning. Given the immediacy of the portal window I get why they made the hire.

But now it's looking like that move could have set us back multiple years given now you will likely have to rebuild next year instead of starting the rebuild this past offseason

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If we let him go the moment the season is over and hire a big name it won't have set us back at all.

LB12Diamond said:

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Schloss and Ford have shown making a solid hire, one can win quickly at A&M in baseball and softball.

Hiring Earley just made this year a total waste but as you pointed out there were reasons last year why he was hired at that time. He was unknown at that time as far as head coaching. That one is no longer the case.

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Making Omaha year 1 after not making the tournament isn't a realistic ask if you're rebuilding a roster. Yes Schloss did it here but even that team struggled the first half of the season before turning it around.

Even if we make a homerun hire my expectation will be just make it back to the tournament and bring in a great recruiting class for going into year 2 (2027 season)

Who said we would make Omaha year one?

I said A&M is a place one can win fast as shown by both of those coaches.

Do you not agree with this one?

Cen-Tex said:

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tjack16 said:

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houstonaggie76 said:

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1. This roster is loaded with experienced MLB prospects
2. He didn't struggle, he's 10-18
3. The team had high-quality SEC road series wins against Arky, Tennessee, etc
4. The struggles against bad teams like Mizzou point to a lack of focus
5. We struggled with poor mid-week opponents
6. This is my opinion, but I hated many of the lineups, and hated the pinch hitters even more
7. The sips won the SEC, swept us, and are recruiting at an elite level according to rankings
8. We are missing the post-season

How do you overcome this?

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I would also add that we are 51 games into the season and do not have defined roles for bullpen guys in any capacity. It's literally just drawing names out of a hat during the final few innings.

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We don't have the talent in the bullpen. There are only a couple of players that perform well.

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We lost Max. The talent is there, the coaching isn't. Look at the turnaround in Austin.

Please stop comparing Earley to Vitello. Vitello walked into a ****show at UT, Earley did not.

O'Sullivan
Vaughn
Canham

Some of you clearly don't understand how baseball at A&M works and how important it is to BMAs. Earley is toast and we'll get a big name coach who has skins on the wall

Not sure the Vitello comparison is apt.

Tennessee had single digit conference wins 5 of the 7 seasons prior to his hiring and hadn't broken even or above in conference since 2005.

Regardless of what happens, we **** the bed with the Earley hire because it was the best chance to retain a CWS roster that played for the natty. Honestly, it was a TYPICAL A&M overreaction to a situation. Just like in football when we have a good year, we give our coaches a ridiculously stupid contract extension OUT OF FEAR that some school will try to poach said coach. In the same manner, we hire Earley OUT OF FEAR for losing a talented roster, a roster that severely underperformed this year. Yes, its the head coach that is supposed to maximize the talent, but there are many players who underperformed by such a degree that we are in the mess we are in. The person in charge is ultimately responsible but it is foolish to not recognize where much of the blame lies.

I have said it before a A&M is not serious about winning because so many decisions are made out of fear. Look at the handwringing comments about sippy and how it affects A&M. Screw that!!! Get serious about winning and quit making decisions out of fear.

The Earley hire was the only way to retain that roster after SoggyBagel grenaded the program and abandoned them.