Texas Baseball - Coaching Staff Changes -- UPDATE (7/2) - Texas has filled both coaching spots

ZachattheDisch · Jun 21, 2022

UPDATE (7/2 at 4:56pm):

Woody Williams, the volunteer assistant pitching coach at San Jacinto (JUCO) will officially be named the new Longhorn pitching coach filling the 2nd paid position on the staff.
Williams is a graduate of Cy-Fair HS in the greater Houston area and graduate of the University of Houston.
He played in the MLB from 1993 to 2007, ending his career with the Houston Astros
Woody began his coaching career at the high school level, coaching Fort Bend Baptist Academy in 2009.
Williams has spent the last 6 seasons on the San Jac (JUCO) coaching staff

UPDATE (6/30 at 2:30pm):

Former Pepperdine and Baylor head coach Steve Rodriguez has been confirmed to be the next hitting coach for the Texas Longhorns.
- Pepperdine 2004-2015 - Team Record 401-300
- Baylor 2016-2022 - Team Record 197-136
Prior to becoming the head coach at Pepperdine, Rodriguez was the assistant coach at Pepperdine
Prior to becoming a coach, Rodriguez won the 1992 national championship and was the West Coast Conference player of the year, as well as being on the All-Tournament team.

UPDATE (6/28 at 2:32pm):

The search for a new pitching goes onward as former Longhorn and current Tennessee pitching coach Frank Anderson has declined the opportunity to return to the University of Texas
There has been a rumor out there since Coach Tulowitzki turned down the opportunity to return to Texas that Coach Phillip Miller could be reassigned and that appears to be the case as of today. There is no word yet what his role will look like, but Coach Pierce now looks to replace both paid assistants now.

UPDATE (6/26 at 1:20pm):

As reported by Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball, Coach Tulo will not return to the University of Texas as a coach for the 2023 season. Tulo has declined the USC job offer and instead will spend the next year acting as a consultant to evaluate job opportunities.

UPDATE (6/22 at 5:17pm):

So far there are two names that have been mentioned of interest for the role of Texas pitching coach.

San Jac volunteer coach Gregory "Woody" Williams
- Woody is a former MLB pitcher, having played for the Blue Jays, Padres, Cardinals and Astros. Currently a volunteer coach for San Jacinto Junior College, Williams hails from Houston, graduating from Cy-Fair High School and later going to college at the University of Houston. His only coaching experience outside of being a volunteer for San Jac comes from his time as the coach for Fort Bend Baptist Academy.
- Woody in my opinion would be a massive reach for Texas as he also sought out the Rice pitching coach role previously and was turned down.
Tennessee pitching coach Frank Anderson
- Coach Anderson has one of the more perplexing reputations in college baseball. While it is true he has had some great success including being the pitching coach under the legendary Augie Garrido during the 2002 national championship season, Anderson also has a very poor reputation amongst many coaching circles. Cited as having a toxic personality, Anderson would be an incredibly poor choice if Texas decides to go that route in just my opinion, but the opinion of numerous college baseball pundits.

Thoughts from @ZachattheDisch

Not 24 hours after being eliminated by Texas A&M in the College World Series, Coach David Pierce delivered some shocking news, he was parting with long time assistance coach Sean Allen. I stepped off the plane on Monday evening to a bevy of text messages, DMs and calls about what the heck was going on. Instead of heading straight to bed suffering from a bad sinus infection, it was right back to work!

Here is where things stand currently.

Coach Pierce has parted ways with Coach Sean Allen who was the Longhorn pitching coach and recruiting coordinator. Coach Allen served on David Pierce’s staff for the last 10 seasons at Texas, Tulane and Sam Houston State. During his time at Texas, Coach Allen transitioned to the role of pitching coach in 2020 while continuing to act as the recruiting coordinator. Coach Allen has held the title of recruiting coordinator since 2017. Prior to being the pitching coach, Allen served as the Texas hitting coach from 2017-19.
While it is true that Coach Pierce and Coach Allen have been together for a number of years, there has also been a growing tension between the two which in my opinion ultimately led to where we are now. I can say in full confidence that Coach Allen was stunned to be let go. Coach Allen was certainly not happy at some of the interactions and the way in which he was overruled at times, but not to the extent he thought he would be let go. The shock did not end at just Coach Allen though, in talking to folks around college baseball, families and alumni, there is a general sense of surprise that Coach Pierce made the move to let Coach Allen go as he is well respected in the baseball community and widely regarded as a very good coach and recruiter. According to a source that spoke directly with Sean Allen today, Allen was “stunned and completely blind sided” by the decision.
Where does Texas go from here? The release of Coach Allen has to be looked at from multiple points of view. First, Coach Allen as mentioned is widely respected in the baseball community as being a solid guy and good coach. The players like and respect him, plus he has been the right hand man since Pierce was named coach in 2016 and as recruiting coordinator helped bring the vast majority of the guys on campus. The second viewpoint is how this affects recruiting. As mentioned previously, Texas is facing a rebuilding year in 2023 where they will likely only return two starters (Dylan Campbell and Mitchell Daly) from the lineup and will only return one weekend starter in Lucas Gordon. Douglas Hodo may still return to campus, but when a coaching change like this occurs, nearly anything can happen. The other unknown is what does the loss of Coach Allen do to the 2022 signees? While it may not have a huge effect one most of them, the loaded 2023 class and onward very well could take a hit. Lastly, this off season suddenly puts Texas quite a precarious state going into 2023 as going into a rebuilding year with a new staff is not usually the best place to be, which could also affect the coaches willing to come to Texas. Who Coach Pierce will turn to remains a bit of a mystery and coupled with the fact that LSU is another prominent program looking for a new pitching and hitting coach as well.
Coach Troy Tulowitzki joined Coach Pierce’s staff in July of 2019 after retiring from an extremely impressive and successful career in MLB. Tulo, as most know him by, joined in a somewhat unusual manner when former Texas great Huston Street found out that he was looking to become a college coach after hanging up his spikes and immediately notified Coach Pierce. Coach Pierce had an opening on his staff due to the departure of then pitching coach Phil Haig, and despite being doubtful about the prospect, Coach Pierce reached out and was able to make a splash hire in bringing the veteran Tulo onto the Texas staff as a volunteer assistance. During his time at Texas, Tulo has been instrumental in helping bring the hitting game up to a new level. Tulo is well known for his ability to diagnose a hitters weaknesses and put together a plan to fix the mechanics, while also playing a huge factor in improving the mental side of the game.
- Since the USC job came open, the rumors have swirled around whether Tulo would be a candidate for the job. Since the beginning of June, Tulo’s name has been bandied about as a serious candidate due to his pedigree and contacts on the West Coast. Remember, he is a Long Beach graduate and is still extremely well respected out there. USC’s main targets from the get go have been UC Santa Barbara’s Andrew Checketts. Coach Checketts rebuffed USC the last time that they came calling, but it appears that AD Bohn is willing to splash much more cash this time around to lure a proven winner. The sticking point is that Coach Checketts loves his program at UC Santa Barbara and appears to be willing to take the Dan Heefner route, rebuffing bigger schools to stay where he is happy at. The other candidate for the USC job is Long Beach State head coach Eric Valenzuela, but after not being seriously considered the last time around and the poor season that Long Beach endured, there are some questions as to how much of a candidate he truly is.
- At this time, there has not been any contract put forward to Coach Tulo and he has not made any decision. That being said, Tulo will absolutely be listening to the pitch from USC to make the best decision for him and his family, which will likely come down to how much investment USC is willing to put into a program that has been in really poor shape for some time. The USC facilities need a massive improvement as they are terrible and this is a program that has not been in the NCAA tournament but twice since 2002 (USC made the Regionals in 2005 and 2015.
- My personal belief in talking to various sources in college baseball and folks in the Texas program is that Tulo will take the USC job. While Tulo was not expected to stick around forever, it will still be a blow to the program as there are some very talented kids that are signed or committed to Texas because of the ability to play and learn from Coach Tulo.

UPDATE - Tulo is confirmed to be at USC today and will accept the head coaching position tomorrow.

Thoughts from @AaronLittleOB

We know Coach Sean Allen is out and there are obviously a lot of rumors about Coach Tulo and USC. The most important part of losing Coach Allen is the loss of a very effective and well respected recruiter. Coach Allen had a big hand in bringing in plenty of hitters and pitchers, the recruiting aspect is the riskiest part of this move. I am not of the belief that this was a spur of the moment decision based on the pitching performances we saw in Omaha. Reports of tension and disagreements have come out which would lead me to believe this was coming regardless. I was never of the belief that Allen should be fired based on the performance of the pitchers this year but I also believe if the recruiting aspect is taken care of, it could be a positive to have a new set of eyes on the pitchers. When I saw the news I remembered back to mid-season when Pierce alluded that there would be changes in how the pitchers are handled next season. He mentioned how he wanted less of a pro-style routine for pitchers. Well safe to say there will indeed be changes on the way.
Tulo to USC? A lot is being said and my read based on all the reports and talking to some people is that I think it will happen but is not a done deal quite yet. This would certainly be a damaging loss as Tulo is a big tool for bringing kids to Austin and he also did a great job with the hitters this season. You have to also wonder if this would impact the decision of say a Douglas Hodo III to go pro or come back for another season. As has been stated in previous threads, Philip Miller is not someone I view as ready to take on a major role like lead recruiting coordinator. It does feel like Miller occupying one of the paid assistant positions would not be an optimal use of resources.

BrobaFapp · Jun 21, 2022