If he wanted to, Jeremiah Donati probably could’ve made changes after last season. Who would’ve blamed him, given that he didn’t hire Paul Mainieri and South Carolina just endured an awful year?
Donati, who’s been to the College World Series five times in his role as an athletics director, wants to see the Gamecocks get back to Omaha. But he’s also realistic and knows changes aren’t always necessary every time something goes wrong. That’s why he decided to keep Mainieri and let him do his thing.
As the 2026 season approaches, Mainieri did exactly what he said he would do. Following his first season in Columbia, he made many changes to his roster, adding 27 new players with only 10 returning from the 2025 team.
“Well, I’m really excited about the guys that came in, really excited about what we saw in the fall,” Donati said on Dec. 12. “I’ve spent a lot of time talking to the players, and the players that have returned have just said that it just feels totally different, for the good.”
Those moves were made with the intention of adding harder-throwing pitchers and more power to a lineup that only hit 58 home runs last season. It remains to be seen how that will translate when the season begins, but South Carolina has certainly improved in both of those aspects.
Donati seems to get that sense as well from what he’s seen in the offseason and when the team took the field in the fall.
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“We’re obviously really excited, very optimistic that the season will be much better,” he said. “It’s a tough league. So we know we’ve improved, but you don’t know what’s around you, too.”
Now that improvements have been made, Mainieri will have to go out and lead South Carolina to a better season in 2026. If the Gamecocks were to encounter similar struggles, Mainieri’s buyout would be $3.9 million to pay out the three remaining years on his contract, but that’s if Donati decided to make a change.
For now, Donati feels “really confident” that Mainieri kept his word to improve the roster and begin to turn around the program for the better.
When asked if he feels good about the team heading into the season, he simply replied, “I do.”
“Again, you don’t know what everyone else did, but I know what we did, and I know we significantly improved our roster,” Donati said.
South Carolina opens the 2026 season on Friday, Feb. 13, against Northern Kentucky at Founders Park.