In just the last three days, the college baseball world has been turned on its head.
On Monday, Tennessee defeated Texas A&M, 6-5, in the best-of-three College World Series final.
Immediately following the game, reports swirled that Aggies head coach Jim Schlossnagle was set to leave his post in College Station to head to rival Texas.
When asked if he was indeed set to depart for the Longhorns, Schlossnagle gave a fiery answer.
“I think it’s pretty selfish of you to ask me that question, to be honest with you,” Schlossnagle responded. “I left my family to be the coach at Texas A&M. I took the job at Texas A&M to never take another job again. That hasn’t changed in my mind. That’s unfair to talk about something like that.”
Just around 24 hours later, Schlossnagle was, in fact, announced as the next head coach at Texas, taking with him three notable Aggie assistant coaches.
On Wednesday, Schlossnagle, 53, met with local media in Austin for the first time and, expectedly, addressed his derisive comments from Omaha.
“I didn’t intentionally mislead [A&M fans],” Schlossnagle said. “In that moment, that’s exactly how I felt. … I dove in, with every single ounce of me, to help A&M have the very best baseball program it could possibly have — and that investment lasted through the last pitch of the national championship game. It never wavered, not one second.”
Schlossnagle continued by expressing a bit of sympathy.
“I get it. You can’t ask for your fan base to support you, and be passionate, like the 12th man always has been. … You can’t ask for that — like I did and our staff did — and then expect everybody to be okay with a coach leaving for its rival school. All I can say is, I have a career, too.”
Schlossnagle also apologized to the reporter, TexAgs.com’s Richard Zane, for his response to the question that set him off.
“He asked a question that was an obvious question,” Schlossnagle said. “I wish I could have answered that better. But in the moment, all 30 minutes after the last pitch, all I could think about was our players. And I really wasn’t in the mood to talk about myself for the future.”
During Schlossnagle’s three years at Texas A&M, the Aggies went a combined 135-62, making two College World Series trips.
Schlossnagle oversaw 10 MLB draft picks from 2023-24, plus continued the development of 2024 Golden Spikes Award semifinalist Braden Montgomery, ranked as MLB.com’s No. 8 draft prospect for 2024.
As for Schlossnagle’s new program, the Longhorns went 36-24 this season before falling in the College Station Regional — ironically enough, losing once to A&M in the process.
Schlossnagle will look to lead Texas to its first CWS title since 2005.