Last Thursday, the Longhorns introduced new baseball coach David Pierce at a press conference on the UT campus. Pierce, the former head coach of Tulane, barely had time to catch his breath after flying in from Los Angeles, California, where he was coaching the Team USA Collegiate Team. After combing through around 30 minutes of audio from Pierce, here are the main takeaways that caught our attention:
1) After talking to former Rice player Adam Zornes, who was recruited by Pierce and played under him at Rice from 2005-2008, and others around college baseball about the new Texas head coach, something that popped up pretty consistently was how much he cared about his players beyond just what happens on the diamond. This statement during his introduction before the question and answer session really stood out:
“The thing I want you to understand is I coach baseball, but I really coach people. Baseball is my platform; it’s my opportunity to see young men grow as the day they walk in and become first-rounders in all aspects of life. It’s not just about baseball first-rounders,” said Pierce. “It’s about becoming great citizens, great young men, businessmen, lawyers, doctors, and just be great family men. That’s what I cherish and that’s what I love to look back at and see how well all these guys are doing. We have such a great foundation to start with.”
2) With just 11.7 scholarships and a shorter time period than the other big three sports to work with, college baseball coaches really have to be efficient at recruiting. It’s pretty much impossible to get eyeballs on every top prospect, and using evaluation time on prospects that end up not being targets can make the process tough. That’s why networking is so important for these coaches, and it’s something that Pierce clearly values.
“Our recruiting, we’ll utilize every resource we have. From our major league scouts to our high school coaches to our select and club teams [and more],” said Pierce. “We’ll start from the inside, and we’ll work out through the state and we’ll work out from there nationally when we need to. We have plenty of resources to make sure we can handle that.”
With deep roots, and a staff with deep roots as well, in Texas, the new Longhorns head coach will place an emphasis on using those roots, and in-state network to evaluate arguably the best state for baseball talent first.
As college baseball has become more competitive, head coaches, who used to hardly ever recruit at all, are becoming more hands-on when it comes to getting on the road and recruiting. Pierce won’t be on the road as much as his assistants, but he’ll see the guys he needs to. Think of it like this: professional organizations have area scouts, who are in charge of an area and submit reports, and then crosscheckers decide which prospects they need to see in order to add further evaluation.
“My involvement is every day with my staff. I may not be at same amount of games they go to, but I’ll pick and choose the places I need to go to or see the person that I need to see,” the new Texas head coach said about his recruiting. “The recruiting is not just at the stadium. Most of my recruiting is networking. If there is a player in the Northeast, I have contacts, so I usually make that contact and reach out before I ever consider going to watch a player. So we utilize our networks and try to be as efficient as possible. I like doing stuff on campus, and I’ll do that as well. When you start, like in this position, I’ll hit the ground running and I’ll be at some stadiums shortly. Not as much as the assistants, but I will be involved.”
3) Somewhere, there were Texas fans watching Pierce’s introduction on LHN and saying out loud, “what about bunting and the offense?” After looking through the numbers and talking to people around college baseball, we’ve gathered that Pierce builds an offense around what he has, but also tries to build an offense that can score in a number of ways. That being said, you can bet Texas, like all programs, will try to put an extra emphasis on guys that can rack up the extra-base-hits.
“First of all, our offensive philosophy is very simple – we want to try to have the ability to score multiple ways. We really, truly feel like we prepare to score against multiple types of pitchers, and have that ability to score with the running game, the short game, with the hit-and-run game, and we were fortunate to drive the ball out of the park last year. Doubles in the gap change the game. We want to make sure we’re freed up, and we’re confident in our swings and do everything possible to be successful.”
During Pierce’s two seasons at Tulane, the Green Wave elevated its slugging percentage from .347 to .423.
4) Pierce has a versatile background that includes being a hitting coach and a pitching coach at the division-one level, but he’ll probably serve as the pitching coach at Texas. When we asked Pierce a two-part question about his offensive philosophy and the roles of his pitching staff, he gave an in-depth preview of how Texas’ pitching staff will be constructed.
“Good question because I spend a lot of time in the fall cultivating a four-to-six man rotation. We’ll start with six to seven guys to try to create a four-man rotation. And then those other two guys find roles and tend to be a couple of your better pitchers,” he stated. “One thing that’s been very unique is that the college game, being different from the pro game, is that [they] play six to seven games in the professional level and there are always opportunities for that closer. If you look at the stats of most of my backend guys, we’re not a team that has a lot of saves because we consider our closer our stopper. And if the game is on the line in the seventh, it’s usually when we go there because we max out at four games a week. So we utilize that a little bit differently than maybe some others.”
That right there is what you can call acute knowledge of high-leverage situations, and when a coach decides to use his best reliever during the game’s most important situation instead of holding him just for the ninth inning. Tulane had just 10 saves last season, and six players accounted for those 10. During the 2015 season, the Green Wave had 17 with Ian Gibaut leading the way with nine. However, Gibaut appeared in 27 games.
Tulane, as a whole, struck out 7.02 batters per nine innings in 2015, which increased to 7.96 in 2016. At Sam Houston State, the increase from Pierce’s first season as head coach to the second was 6.22 strikeouts per nine innings to 7.48.
5) It’s probably going to take a few losses before Pierce actually experiences what the expectations truly are at Texas, but he’s extremely familiar with the program. He didn’t come off as a guy that’s going to be bothered by those types of factors. He discussed the consistency of his programs during his head coaching stops, and also mental toughness.
“We talk about expectations. We talk about pressure. I don’t feel any of that. Really what I feel is it’s a day-to-day process to go get better every day,” he said. “And we’re going to have talented players. We’ve been fortunate. We’ve had some opportunities that we’ve earned, and we’ve earned those because we’ve been very consistent. When we’ve lost a game, we’ve bounced back.”
Pierce reiterated what often gets lost during the season: baseball is a grind.
“When I talk about mental toughness, I talk about being consistent on every aspect of your game. It’s tough to play on Sundays after Friday, Saturday. So we have to figure out how to win on Sunday. In Tuesday midweek games, we’re a target so we have to make sure we’re prepared. If we’re prepared and we’re consistent, we’re not guaranteed anything but we’re guaranteed an opportunity to compete,” Pierce stated. “You have to understand our season is a very long grind. It’s not… you can walk out and have a great first two weekends and then struggle the next three. What we want to try to do is eliminate those periods when we’re struggling and get back on track.”
Again, he’s a coach that clearly knows what’s expected at Texas, but doesn’t seem like one that’s going to let that bother him.
“I think if you view it as bigger than it really is, it’s going to control you. I never have viewed that as something that I have to do. We convince players every day if you get in the box and you feel like you have to hit, you have to drive the run in, or you have to make the great pitch, well you’re not going to be successful. We want their minds clear,” he said about the pressures of a big-time program. “We want them to have the ability to maximize what their capabilities are. If we start looking at the big picture, that’s when it starts to affect you.”
Under the new head coach, Texas will look to develop a strong work-ethic and process every day that allows them to just play the game when that time comes.
“We want to be very good in our process, very good in our work-ethic every day and relax and go out and play. We have a saying that we’re going to give you all the information, we’re going to work you as hard as we can, and we’re going to give you the game back and let you go play. And that’s what we intend to do.”
6) Pierce, who referred to himself as a slow-talking Texan, takes great pride in his Texas roots. He referred to the list of coaches before him at Texas by saying it’s “an honor” to follow Augie Garrido and Cliff Gustafson. His daughter, a Texas graduate in 2012, is getting married in Dripping Springs soon. He served as the director of the Texas High School Coaches Association, said he goes to Waco every year for that event, and even borrowed a page from the Mack Brown playbook by acknowledging he has “great respect” for high school coaches.
“It’s been well-documented, my roots, and how special it is for me and my family and I to come back home and not only come back home to Texas, but to come back to the University of Texas, the greatest university in the country,” said Pierce. “I truly believe that.”
The former Tulane head coach also added that Garrido has been very receptive to him.
7) Don’t look for Pierce to make any excuses.
“There’s absolutely no waiting. We have great expectations everywhere we’ve been. My intent is to jump right in it. I think we have some very good young players, some very good returning players coming back,” he said about next season. “I think he’ll just try to continue what coach Garrido and his staff has taken the program and try to build on these young men.”
8) As a member of the Houston baseball team from 1984-85, Pierce played against Texas. He’s well-versed in the history of all the players that have come through Texas, and is looking forward to reaching out to those alumni and building relationships.
“This is one part that’s really interesting to me: I’m really excited about cultivating the relationships with all of our alumni, with all our former players, and to have every opportunity to have them on campus and be at the stadium and share their experiences with our current team,” he said.
9) Last season, Pierce received an up-close look at Texas when Tulane came to Austin for a series, which resulted in a series win for Tulane. He saw some talent then, and knows there is some on the 40 Acres. However, he’ll have to accomplish something first to maximize that talent.
