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AUSTIN (KXAN) — It didn't take long for Texas to name a new head baseball coach.
After the Longhorns let David Pierce go on Monday, athletic director Chris Del Conte announced Jim Schlossnagle as head coach fresh off a runner-up finish with Texas A&M at the Men's College World Series. He's the 14th head coach in the history of the Longhorns program.
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"I’ve known Coach Schlossnagle for a long time, and there’s no better coach, program builder, and leader in the game, and the best part is he’s an even better person," Del Conte said. "He’s a guy who obviously knows our state so well, is very familiar with our program’s rich and proud history and everything Texas Baseball is all about, and absolutely checks all the boxes for this critical position."
Schlossnagle's introductory press conference will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday and streamed on TexasSports.com.
Following the Aggies' 6-5 loss to the Tennessee Volunteers in Game 3 of the MCWS finals Monday, Schlossnagle told reporters that he took the job at Texas A&M to "never take another job ever again." Clearly, that changed when the Longhorns called.
After three seasons in College Station, Schlossnagle was 135-62 with two trips to the MCWS in 2022 and this past season. The Aggies played in their first-ever championship series this year and won the first game before dropping the final two. In his 23-year head coaching career spanning stops at UNLV, TCU and Texas A&M, he's 946-455 and has never had a losing season. The 2002 team at UNLV went 30-30 in his first year as a head coach and every year since then his teams finished above .500.
Schlossnagle has taken teams to the MCWS seven times, and that includes a stretch of four consecutive trips with TCU from 2014-2017. He led the Aggies to a 53-15 record this season, 19-11 in the Southeastern Conference, and the school's best-ever finish in the MCWS.
Del Conte was TCU's athletic director from 2009-17 while Schlossnagle was in the middle of his impressive tenure with the Horned Frogs. Schlossnagle rang up a .680 winning percentage (734-346) in 18 seasons in Forth Worth.
The Longhorns lost to the Aggies and Louisiana in the College Station regional of the NCAA tournament this season and finished the season 36-24. Texas joins the SEC on July 1 and will once again be in the same conference as the Aggies.