O' Sullivan to USC?

[Swamp Donkey]

[anybody that thinks this is good news could totally care less.

fify.

Use the money to hire football staff.

 

[MertzJay26]

fify.

Use the money to hire football staff.

Your point has been stated many times. Make no mistake, we know where you stand.

 

[FireFoley]

I weighed in earlier but have to admit I did not even know that the South Carolina baseball coach had "resigned' (cough, cough). In fact when I first saw the topic I thought maybe it was Southern Cal and them trying to recreate their baseball dominance from 30 years ago. With that said, I saw the USCe coach had a 200-106 record in 5 years, although they missed the tourney 2 of the last 3 years, but they had bad injuries this year. So with a record like that and if Fooley were AD, that coach would have gotten a double in salary and an extension!

 

[oxking]

I played baseball my whole life Ox I don't believe you can be out coached. Baseball is a game of you're either hitting or your not. If you have every batter get 2 hits a piece your most likely going to win the game. That's why I don't see how you can blame the coach for the batters going cold at the plate. Now I'll agree it's on the coach to make changes if players are not performing but there is not much strategy to the game. It's not like basketball where you draw up a play to out smart the other team, you know what's going to happen the pitcher is going throw the ball the goal is to get a hit so in reality besides pitching there isn't many ways you can be out coached

Well, I didn't play my whole life but only through age 20. I'm not talking about hitting. I'm talking about managing decisions. The first example was in the finals against South Carolina. Bottom of the ninth, 0-0, nobody hitting, bases loaded nobody out. How about a squeeze. Because his players either cannot bunt or were not taught to bunt or, which is most likely the case, he chose not to attempt the squeeze. You have to be able to manufacture a run. Hells, bells, if he had of failed twice he would have still had one out left. The 2nd, was the semifinals when PUK was a Soph. He was pitching lights out but Sully was too stupid to bring him in to save the game. Even after the game, he said he thought we had a good chance if we could have gotten through the game. It was too late so we went home intead but of course, the consolation was that PUK was fresh. It's ridiculous to say that you can't be outcoached. Walton was also outcoached in the 2nd game. Starting Ocasio was stupid and not using Barnhill was complete ineptitude.

 

[oxking]

The notion that Sully is a GREAT recruiter is a joke. Sully recruits Great pitchers and below average hitters. Yeah, y'all are right he can't swing the bat's for them but he could start by recruiting guys that have power and can score runs. He recruits good baseball players that can't hit worth a lick. He puts every game on the pitching staff to win.

Give me that coach from BCC and I'll consider it a win.

Really. There's no excuse having a whole team hitting around the Mendoza line. And to top it off, he continues to play gorilla ball when he should be concentrating on small ball with a whole team of Cody Dents.

 

[oxking]

I weighed in earlier but have to admit I did not even know that the South Carolina baseball coach had "resigned' (cough, cough). In fact when I first saw the topic I thought maybe it was Southern Cal and them trying to recreate their baseball dominance from 30 years ago. With that said, I saw the USCe coach had a 200-106 record in 5 years, although they missed the tourney 2 of the last 3 years, but they had bad injuries this year. So with a record like that and if Fooley were AD, that coach would have gotten a double in salary and an extension![/QUOTE

I don't care. I just don't want us wasting 10 million dollars on a program that is a bottomless pit of losing money.

Law, you could say that about all non football sports. Money isn't the issue for me. Giving a Sully a 10 year contract, a guy that spits the bit every chance he gets in the world series, is Fooleyish to say the least. I'd say keep throwing cheap coaches at the program until they find someone that can win the big one.

 

[oxking]

How is this considered anything but good news?

Really. sa·yo·na·ra

 

[oxking]

We should waive any buyout clauses with this guy (or Butters).

It could save us 80 plus million of football profit which could actually be invested in football.

I will go for that. However, if USC actually woos him, they will find a way around this buyout. You know as well as I, that Mac is going nowhere fast.

 

[MertzJay26]

this thread is funny.

O'Sullivan is not without his flaws, but the guy consistently has us in Omaha. If he left, there's a chance we could very easily go back to being an average club that rarely makes it to the CWS.

 

[dz_23]

this thread is funny.

O'Sullivan is not without his flaws, but the guy consistently has us in Omaha. If he left, there's a chance we could very easily go back to being an average club that rarely makes it to the CWS.

Agreed, being "in the discussion" every year should be good enough for everyone who thinks baseball is not a sport

 

[gatormandan]

If coaching doesnt matter I guess I can go make millions coaching?

 

[Swamp Donkey]

If coaching doesnt matter I guess I can go make millions coaching?

 

[Gator Fever]

If coaching doesnt matter I guess I can go make millions coaching?

Yep in baseball. Just make sure you make the obvious decision each time and talent will prevail over the long haul. Heck pro baseball used to have many player/managers in the old days. I think Pete Rose was a player/manager for a few years near the end of his playing career. Its not like football where a coach can really screw up a talented team bad if he doesn't have a good feel for the game.

 

[Left Coast Gator]

We can banter back and forth about why he would or would not leave but the reality is that the Florida job is a better job than USC. For starters because the USC job is in South Carolina.
If Sully leaves for that job then he lacks the gray matter necessary to continue to develop into an elite college coach and is probably better off there.

I hope he takes the current hitting coach with. From what I have observed it seem that his strategy is to have all hitters stand there with the bat on their shoulder and watch strikes go past but to swing wildly at every pitch that is out of the strike zone.

 

[Durty South Swamp]

Our hitting is awful. Look at the BAs for everyone, almost all in the .200s. Now look at all the other tourney team players BAs...

We're hosed once we leave the comfy confines of home turf. It also drives me crazy how our batters just stand there and let two pitches in the strike zone go by before getting the swing away sign from sully. Then they're left being forced to chase something marginal b/c they're down 2 strikes. It's like our entire batting concept is to try and get everyone walked, then swing when we must.

The offense is awful, despite our record. Need to change something badly.

 

[KronoGator]

Wait...UF has a hitting coach???

 

[GatorTAG]

Our hitting is awful. Look at the BAs for everyone, almost all in the .200s. Now look at all the other tourney team players BAs...

We're hosed once we leave the comfy confines of home turf. It also drives me crazy how our batters just stand there and let two pitches in the strike zone go by before getting the swing away sign from sully. Then they're left being forced to chase something marginal b/c they're down 2 strikes. It's like our entire batting concept is to try and get everyone walked, then swing when we must.

The offense is awful, despite our record. Need to change something badly.

That's Sully's game. He recruits good pitching and defense and hopes he gets you in a 1-1 game late. Then rely on the other teams to walk the bases loaded and pray for a ball to roll out of the infield.

That's why we have an NCAA leading 17 one run wins. And that will get you to the CWS but most of the teams that get there have good pitching. That's also why he can't get past that point.

If you look at our roster just every player that's not a pitcher is 5'10"-6'0" 195 lbs. Rivera, Guthrie, India, Maldonado, Liput, Horvath, Kolozsvary, Langworthy and Larson are all that same size. Its like he recruits a certain body type over anything else. None of them scare you as hitters and none of them are guys an opposing pitching staff has to pitch around.

Look at most other rosters and you'll see their guys are 6'0"-6'4", 220 lb. monsters with power.

Heck, the state college I work for has much bigger guys than Sully's players.

 

[cover2]

Our hitting is awful. Look at the BAs for everyone, almost all in the .200s. Now look at all the other tourney team players BAs...

We're hosed once we leave the comfy confines of home turf. It also drives me crazy how our batters just stand there and let two pitches in the strike zone go by before getting the swing away sign from sully. Then they're left being forced to chase something marginal b/c they're down 2 strikes. It's like our entire batting concept is to try and get everyone walked, then swing when we must.

The offense is awful, despite our record. Need to change something badly.

Not saying it's the very best approach, but take two is a strategy used by several teams with marginal hitting that will try and pile up the opponent's pitch count. Having good pitching and defense are other important variables. It isn't offensively exciting and sometimes it doesn't work, but given our offense, it has been a pretty good piece of coaching, this year at least, by Sully IMO. Hope we can recruit our way into a more power/BA-centric offense upcoming.

That's Sully's game. He recruits good pitching and defense and hopes he gets you in a 1-1 game late. Then rely on the other teams to walk the bases loaded and pray for a ball to roll out of the infield.

That's why we have an NCAA leading 17 one run wins. And that will get you to the CWS but most of the teams that get there have good pitching. That's also why he can't get past that point.

If you look at our roster just every player that's not a pitcher is 5'10"-6'0" 195 lbs. Rivera, Guthrie, India, Maldonado, Liput, Horvath, Kolozsvary, Langworthy and Larson are all that same size. Its like he recruits a certain body type over anything else. None of them scare you as hitters and none of them are guys an opposing pitching staff has to pitch around.

Look at most other rosters and you'll see their guys are 6'0"-6'4", 220 lb. monsters with power.

Heck, the state college I work for has much bigger guys than Sully's players.

Agreed about how small we look at the plate comparatively. I'd think Sully would like the big, strong guys, but we don't seem to get them in bunches. Why?

 

[Thick&ThinG8r]

He use to recruit the HR hitters until they changed the bats, it was almost impossible to hit a homerun for a few years after that.
So he seems to have switched to contact hitters in an attempt to play smallball but doesn't have the ability to coach it correctly.
They have now made the ball more lively but we're stuck with this sh!t show.

 

[GatorTAG]

Agreed about how small we look at the plate comparatively. I'd think Sully would like the big, strong guys, but we don't seem to get them in bunches. Why?

Sully is on record as saying he'll take an elite pitcher over an elite hitter every time. I can't say that I disagree with that. But I really think he develops his entire team around a pitching staff and then he just recruits good all around baseball players to back them up. I think big hitters is last on his list of priorities when recruiting.