COLUMBIA — Season over, conversations chirping about who the new coach will be, current players in exit meetings trying to decide what their futures look like as the program decides its own.

The new coach will of course put his own stamp on it. That’s expected, and a reason why South Carolina administrators (to start) are seeking a head coach who has “done it in 2026.”

What does that look like? The Gamecocks are prepared to offer the same amount of funding to the program that they did for this year’s 22-35 disaster, and perhaps more, but how the new coach uses it is up to him.

That’s where the weeds begin to part. There’s so much wrong with the Gamecocks that simply changing the man in charge isn’t going to help. As the won-loss records and postseason berths dribbled downhill since 2013 before picking up warp speed and careening into the present black hole, it looked more and more like a complete gutting would have to be undertaken.

This is where USC baseball, once the crown jewel of the country, is.

Stability

Interim head coach Monte Lee said it during the season. South Carolina needed stability more than anything. As program insider Jamie Bradford pointed out in a recent graphic, the Gamecocks since 2018 have had a revolving door of coaches. 

Outside of the three head coaches since then, there have been four pitching coaches (five if counting Chris Gordon, who switched from director of operations and player development to assisting Terry Rooney with the pitchers this year after Paul Mainieri resigned) and five recruiting coordinators. Assistants Joey Holcomb and Scott Wingo also came and went.

As new coaches do, they would probably want to bring much of their current staff with them. Pitching is pitching, where each coach can work with who they have.

But recruiting? That’s where it would be convenient to pick a new coach who already has in-state recruiting ties. Because in-state recruiting has taken a severe downward spiral lately.

The next class(es)

Lee has done it his entire life. He grew up in Lugoff, played at College of Charleston, coached all over the state. He knows South Carolina and the players it produces.

“We need to get back to recruiting kids in the state of South Carolina and kids closer to home like a Pat Evans, who will run through a brick wall for the program. We need more guys like him, where it’s personal to them, the success of the program,” Lee said. “We certainly have to continue to recruit out of the portal and junior college. That’s not going to go away.

“But I think, to build a program — just building the classes from the ground up, letting the kids grow up in the program and recruiting kids that have a burning desire and a passion to play for South Carolina — would be what I would recommend to the next leader.”

Mainieri and Rooney were in charge of recruiting and roster-building the past year, after they in most part had to play the hand they were dealt in 2025 following the firing of Mark Kingston. Armed with more money from above, they went to the portal for this year’s team.

All but 10 of the 37-man roster came from the portal or JUCOs in 2026. Another three were high school freshmen. The Gamecocks spent big and got a team that lost more games than the program ever had.

That sacrificed high school recruiting, which bleeds into next year and the year after. According to Prep Baseball Report, which has former USC assistant Sammy Esposito as South Carolina Director of Scouting, only one of this season’s top 10 players (Easley’s Walker Cox) is committed to the Gamecocks. Only one of the 2027 top 10 (Lexington’s Christian Spivey) is committed to the Gamecocks. 

The top seven combined prospects in each class are all committed to out-of-state schools. The three after Spivey in 2027 are also pledged out-of-state. The three after Cox next year are all in with Clemson.

Granted, some of the prospects could be taken in the Major League Baseball draft and won’t play college ball anyway. But it won’t be nearly all of them. Those players that Lee said should have a passion for playing for USC?

They could grow up as USC fans, but they haven’t seen much winning lately. They were toddlers the last time the Gamecocks went to the College World Series. It’s doubtful they remember anything about those days.

Where to?

That’s going to be a choice for the new coach. Do they go portal-heavy next year, trying to win right away (one can see how that flopped this year)? Or do they square their shoulders, accept that rebuilding high school recruiting as the base of the team and then adding to it from the portal may mean they’re going to have to deal with lack of results for a year or two and then focus on Years 3-4 as the payoff?

Building a team through high school and JUCOs has worked before. Ray Tanner was always keen on signing JUCO players and then playing them (Adrian Morales, Bobby Haney, Robert Beary). They augmented the talent he had from the prep ranks (Wingo, Michael Roth and Matt Price were all South Carolina kids).

You have that foundation and the same amount of NIL money for the portal, perhaps that cash can get pooled into recruiting the best available arms and bats to add to the team, USC’s own personal free-agency cycle. But the foundation has to be built first if that’s the approach.

The players determine it. Having a unified coaching style aids it (Mainieri and Lee, kindly, were planets apart on their offensive schemes). Tanner handed a Ferrari to Chad Holbrook. Holbrook’s teams weren’t as consistent, but the first roster he gave to Kingston got within a game of the CWS.

Mainieri’s inherited roster had still reached an NCAA regional the year before, but his additions to it and then basically an entirely new team in 2026 resulted in where this program is. Which is destitute.

The new coach has to accept that, have a plan to repair it and then institute it. Quick success would be lovely.

But steady improvement on the way to quick success is definitely understandable.