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It appears Steve Rodriguez will take an assistant position with the Longhorns

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Reports: Texas targeting former Baylor head coach for assistant role

Joe Cookabout 17 hours

Texas is targeting former Baylor baseball head coach Steve Rodriguez for a role on David Pierce's staff, per multiple reports. Rodriguez, who played in the Major Leagues for a total of 18 games with the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox, would bring over two decades of coaching experience to the Longhorn baseball program.

Rodriguez's coaching focuses include hitting and infield. As a head coach, Rodriguez compiled a 598-436 record at Pepperdine and Baylor. He led the Waves to the NCAA tournament eight times in 12 years before taking over in Waco. The Bears reached the postseason three consecutive seasons from 2017 to 2019 under Rodriguez and won the Big 12 tournament in 2018. He reached the super regional round once during his career in 2014 with Pepperdine. Rodriguez was the Big 12 coach of the year in 2017.
Baylor produced eight All-Americans and three freshman All-Americans during Rodriguez's time leading the Bears. He also produced a Big 12 player of the year in 2019 in infielder Davis Wendzel. Fourteen draft picks also came out of Waco during his days leading the BU program.

Rodriguez joins the staff after Pierce saw all three assistant coaching roles open up following the end to Texas' season at the hands of the Texas A&M Aggies in the College World Series. Pitching coach and recruiting coordinator Sean Allen was let go, while volunteer assistant Troy Tulowitzki elected not to return to the staff. Assistant coach Philip Miller was reassigned within the program.

Pierce just completed his sixth season as head coach of the Longhorns. He's made three appearances at the College World Series, including back-to-back appearances in 2021 and 2022. Pierce was named national coach of the year by several publications in 2018, and has won two Big 12 regular season titles during his time in Austin.

During his Texas tenure, Pierce is 219-116. His overall record is 416-225 including his time spent as head coach at Tulane and Sam Houston State.

Two openings, one for a full-time assistant and one for a volunteer assistant, remain for Pierce to fill this offseason.

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This is a strange move for me considering what some of the posters said about the culture of the team and dugout this season. I thought he might be done or take some time off.

Not strange he is gone. It is a head scratcher. Texas has a great reputation in baseball. However the coaching fraternity is tight. These guys are all friends. They know the profession is short lived and get it while you can. We know Rod and Strauss as awful coaches for us the last 3-4 years. I know some like them and that's ok. Rod should be good as hitting coach. Strauss I have no idea how he has gotten by as a pitch caller. I feel for Texas pitchers if he is selected as pitching coach. Texas should have ex players who would volunteer services better than Strauss. It would be a joke of hire.

best of luck to him.

- kkm

I would be shocked if Texas even looked at Strauss. The word I heard was that Rodriguez and Strauss were not friendly to one another towards the end of their Baylor tenure. The coaching staff was toxic from what I heard from players on the team. The pitchers could not stand Strauss. Said he was a coach that would be little them and not teach them anything. they said he called a good game, but did not teach them anything and was really hard to play for.

It will be interesting to see Rodriguez as an assistant because assistants have to recruit. And again from the things I heard about Rodriguez time at Baylor is that he basically didn't recruit at all. I did hear that he was a really good infield coach.

UniquelyUrsine said:

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Rodriguez's coaching focuses include hitting and infield.

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Somebody should tell him, our hitting was abysmal and our fielding percentage was below my son's coach pitch team while he was here.

We led the nation in double plays turned.. couldn't have been that bad.

I guess if a man has a glove he teach someone to field
Give him a bat he teach him to bunt.