When people like Kendall Rogers state things like ' if Serrano can't succeed at UT then who can' I think of Serrano's own words and the things discussed in this column. They hired a coach in Serrano who had a lot of success in the Big West conference and in recruiting Southern California. Apparently though when it comes to understanding the type of offensive approach needed to compete in the SEC he was very much a novice and a slow learner. He stated the other day they have not been spending enough scholarship money on pitching which was a mistake.
UT has been spending upwards of half a million dollars a year on someone who is a good baseball coach in SoCal but thus far has been overmatched when it comes to the important decisions a head coach has to make to be successful in the SEC. While I'm happy for Serrano and his family that they get to stay, the decision Hart made is baffling and really unprecedented.
I've been thinking on your post and these are my thoughts.
When CDS was hired the only thing resume wise you could compare it to was the hiring of Johnny Majors in 1977 after he'd won a National Title at Pittsburgh. That was considered a home run hire, not just because he was a Tennessee "guy" but because of the success he had at Pitt and he was only at Pitt for four years.
It took him nine seasons to reach the Sugar Bowl at Tennessee, 1985 was the first time in his tenure we were ranked in the AP final poll, #4. I remember it well because we beat Miami and I graduated from High School that year.
It took him a lot longer than anyone hoped it would. He went 5-6 in his 5th year, by today's standards he would have been fired.
Kendall Rogers fully expected Serrano to be fired, he put it at 85% and he based it on the comments of Serrano's staff apparently, so they too thought they were going to be fired and it sure seems like CDS thought there was a better chance of being fired than being retained based on his comments in the press conference.
Wonder what happened?
His $450,000 was middle of the pack in 2013, don't know where it is now, but that number was based on what he did before getting here and anyone else with that kind of resume would have gotten around the same. Best I can tell, the investment in Serrano is the only investment they have made in the baseball program in the last 5 years.
Trying to pull the recruiting on a one year deal isn't a big deal might be unprecedented.
The current 2016 class...1/2 of that class, almost all of the biggest names committed the summer of 2014.
That means this July and August we should be signing 2018 kids and the hay should be close to being put up for 2017 for sure and we should be into 2019 a little bit too. We may not be far behind Missouri, Kentucky, Auburn...but that's not really catching up with UF, VU, TAMU, MSU etc...
