South Carolina Baseball Coaching Profile: Candidates To Replace Mark Kingston
Image credit: South Carolina athletic director Ray Tanner (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
South Carolina on Monday fired coach Mark Kingston after seven seasons at the program’s helm.
Kingston went 217-155 with the Gamecocks and led them to four NCAA Tournament appearances and two super regionals (2018 and 2023). They hosted regionals twice, though once was a No. 2 seed. Most importantly, South Carolina did not break through to the College World Series and this season went 37-25 and 13-17 in SEC play before going 1-2 in the Raleigh Regional. It was the second time in three seasons that the Gamecocks went 13-17 in conference play.
This opens one of the bigger jobs in the SEC and presents a big moment for athletic director Ray Tanner, who still was the last coach to lead the Gamecocks to the College World Series. That was all the way back in 2012, his last season as head coach, before he moved up to athletic director.
Tanner will face weighty expectations with this hire. This will be the third time he has made a baseball hire and his first two–promoting Chad Holbrook and Kingston–have delivered four super regionals, no Omaha trips and no SEC titles in 12 years. In contrast, in Tanner’s final 12 seasons as head coach, South Carolina won two national titles, played for a third, reached Omaha six times and won the SEC twice.
Tanner is 66. This is probably the last major hire he’ll make as athletic director. It’s one last big chance to shape the program’s path forward.
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On the one hand, South Carolina needs to swing big. It has one of the most dedicated fan bases in the sport, Founders Park is one of the game’s great venues and their job figures to be one of the biggest on the market this summer. On the other hand, the last 12 years have probably taught us something about the South Carolina job, especially in the face of a changing and expanded SEC.
When Tanner had South Carolina operating at its peak capacity, the SEC had just 12 teams–that’s how long ago it was. Other programs have risen, and the league is more competitive top to bottom. At the same time, South Carolina has not kept its job at the top of the conference’s pay scale. Kingston was making $725,000, which ranks in the bottom half of the SEC.
The head coach’s salary is not the only way of judging commitment or how good a job is, but it is a reasonable starting point. And in a conference where more than half of all schools are paying their head coach at least $1 million, South Carolina probably to push some more chips to the table if it wants to return to the glory days of the first part of the 21st century.
South Carolina probably won’t rule college baseball the way it did during 2010-12–just look at how difficult it has been for any of the final four teams playing in Omaha to sustain that success in the free-transfer era–but it still has the potential to be a premier program. Tanner must get this move right to make that happen, however.
The Candidates
I don’t usually tier the list of candidates, but I will in this case. The top tier is if South Carolina pushes all-in. After seeing Tennessee and now Kentucky pass it in on-field results, perhaps South Carolina is willing to double its salary base and commit to a large pool of NIL money. The next tier would see South Carolina more modestly increase its financial commitment, joining the $1 million club for a head coach. The last tier would keep the Gamecocks at about the level they’ve been. I’m not drawing formal lines between the tiers, but that’s how to read the order presented here.
It’s important to acknowledge that just because one coach might command a higher salary than another that doesn’t mean he would be a better fit or a better hire. And if South Carolina were to go all in, it could probably add a few top-end names to this list. We’re in an uncertain period of college athletics and it is an SEC job. That’s not only attractive because it’s the most competitive conference in college baseball, but it and the Big Ten can now flex clear financial might and stability over the rest of the conferences after the latest round of consolidation. Some coaches who might not otherwise be job hunting, could be convinced this summer to take an interview.
With that in mind, here’s the list.
Tom Walter, head coach, Wake Forest: Walter has built Wake over the last 14 years. The Demon Deacons last year won the ACC for the first time since 1963 and reached the College World Series for the first time since 1955. They’ve turned out elite talent and this year have three projected first-round picks, after last year having two.
Walter is in a comfortable spot at Wake. He has built the program to the point that it should be able to contend in the ACC for years to come. He also signed a contract extension after last season but because Wake is a private school, we don’t know the full details. Wake is ready to fight for him and has sunk a lot of money into the program already, but it’s also fair to say that South Carolina should be able to offer him a significant pay raise if it wanted. The lure of the SEC and competing against the best teams is a powerful one, which helped draw Jay Johnson and Jim Schlossnagle away from powerhouses in recent seasons. So, while it may seem strange to leave Wake just as it has arrived as national title contenders, there’s recent precedent for such a decision.
Dan McDonnell, head coach, Louisville: McDonnell makes for an interesting candidate. On the one hand, he built Louisville into a national power and has led the Cardinals to Omaha five times. On the other hand, Louisville has struggled since the pandemic. It has missed the NCAA Tournament in three of the last four seasons (though it did mix in a year in which it hosted and went to super regionals). There are questions about how well McDonnell has managed the changes in the game, particularly the transfer portal, which he has seldom used.
There are some fair criticisms of McDonnell, but his track record of success is long, and he has strong ties to the Palmetto State, as he both played and coached at The Citadel. If he can convince Tanner that he hasn’t lost his fastball, he’d be a solid fit.
Chris Pollard, head coach, Duke: Pollard took a dormant program that hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1968 and turned it into a consistent regional team that competes at the top of the ACC. Duke this season won the ACC Tournament, its second title in four years, and has made the NCAA Tournament six times in seven seasons. That success comes after Pollard took Appalachian State to a regional final. He’s deserving of a look from premium programs, but he’s also in a good spot at Duke.
Cliff Godwin, head coach, East Carolina: Godwin’s name is sure to come up for any SEC opening–and especially one just four hours down the road. He has been involved in several SEC searches in the past. While it hasn’t worked out at any of them, expect the interest to continue. Godwin, however, very much wants to get his alma mater to the CWS for the first time in program history. He has a good thing going at ECU and has five years left on a contract that pays him $600,000 annually. But if he wants to be an SEC head coach, this is one of the best entrée points.
Justin Haire, head coach, Campbell: Haire got deep into the process at Georgia last year before it ultimately hired Wes Johnson. There’s no question about his coaching ability – he took Campbell to five straight NCAA Tournaments before missing this year, turned the program into a premium mid-major and developed elite talent like 2022 first-round pick Zach Neto. The fact that Campbell this season finished seventh in the Coastal Athletic Conference in its first year in the league might be a knock, but the biggest mark against his coaching resume is a lack of not only SEC experience, but also experience in any major conference as an assistant or head coach. The last SEC coach hired without experience coaching in a major conference was Missouri’s Steve Bieser eight years ago.
Jason Jackson, associate head coach, Alabama: Jackson has long been regarded as one of the best pitching coaches and recruiters in college baseball. He has spent seven years at Alabama, including serving as interim head coach at the end of last season. He guided the Crimson Tide through a tumultuous two months and to a super regionals appearance. A full-time head coaching job should be in his future.
Jake Gautreau, assistant coach, Mississippi State: Gautreau is one of the most respected hitting coaches and recruiters in the country. He helped Mississippi State win the 2021 College World Series and has drawn strong interest over the last few years, though not for a job at the level of South Carolina. If the Gamecocks went the assistant coach route, he’d be a strong option.
Nick Schnabel, assistant head coach, Clemson: The rivalry makes this one complicated. But if that can be separated, he’s an elite assistant coach with a strong track record of success and familiarity with the Carolinas. He has spent the last two years on staff at Clemson under Erik Bakich and played and coached at East Carolina. He also was a part of Bakich’s staff at Michigan, helping the Wolverines reach the 2019 CWS championship series.
Josh Jordan, assistant coach, LSU: Jordan has spent the last two seasons at LSU, where he was a part of the staff for the 2023 national champions. Before that he was on staff with Pollard at Duke and Appalachian State, eventually holding the title of associate head coach. He has SEC experience, helping Pollard build the program at Duke. He also grew up outside Charlotte. LSU assistant coaches have been very popular on the coaching market in recent seasons. Three were hired as head coaches at major conference schools in the last two years: Wes Johnson at Georgia, Dan Fitzgerald at Kansas and Jason Kelly at Washington.
Monte Lee, associate head coach, South Carolina: Lee spent the last two years on Kingston’s staff, his second stint as an assistant at South Carolina, as he also worked under Tanner. In between, he was the head coach at Charleston, which he took to super regionals in 2014, and Clemson, where he went 242-136, but was fired after missing back-to-back NCAA Tournaments in 2021-22 and not winning a regional in six full seasons. Lee knows what it takes to win in Columbia and is a link to the great years under Tanner (though he had left by the national championship seasons). It might be a bit odd to fire the head coach to hire his assistant, but it worked to great success at Oklahoma a few years ago, when Skip Johnson was promoted in the wake of Pete Hughes’ firing.
