Coaching Changes With HA Programs

That's an interesting question.  I don't know, but I would assume that the new coach would honor those commitments because a) not doing so would tarnish the program's reputation and b) even if the new coach was hired in September, it would be real scramble to find quality, uncommitted players who can get through admissions even with help at a school like Chicago.

If you search/read through the threads in years past you will see that U of Chicago is one of the more challenging schools for baseball admissions. The coach does not have slots and no likely letters. The admissions office has final say albeit with the coach's recommendation. My '22 had several discussions with the outgoing coach who was honest and straight forward with his process. For some background, once the pre-read was complete the coach assigns an admissions person to the athlete to help complete the application. The approach here, I assume, is to make sure the app is a strong as it can be. The assistant coach was a very helpful part of the process w my son and he is still with the program. I don't know for sure but I assume that those players that started this process would be in the capable hands of the assistant. The process is definitely worth the anxiety given its 6th place academic ranking in US News. Hope this helps.

Thanks Giants Fan. I wasn't specifically referring to Chicago, just using them as an example. I guess Chicago would be even more of an unknown since they still haven't named a coach, have they?

We had this experience at Caltech. Coach Mark recruited my son but then left before he applied Early Action in October. We found out he was leaving in August and got in touch with the Athletic Director at that time to make sure he didn't fall through the cracks. Fortunately as it turned out, Coach Mark had provided notes on all his recruits to the AD, Admissions and to his successor, Coach Whitehead, who was hired sometime that Fall. For what it's worth, that was our experience.

@CollegebaseballInsights posted:

Probably case by case basis,  bottom line the coach is going to want to bring in his guys.

Here is what happened at Washington State after posting a 11-42 record in 2019

Here was their overall turnover by position

More the 50% player attrition, note you can exclude mlb drafted, potential graduates.

High level of freshman left.

Here is what they lost by position and grad class

from a recruiting perspective, coach did a 50/50 split between transfers and new.

Here is what they brought in.

I'm referring to HA schools. Most of the coaches there aren't going to be able to bring in their own guys.

@CollegebaseballInsights posted:

Probably case by case basis,  bottom line the coach is going to want to bring in his guys.

Here is what happened at Washington State after posting a 11-42 record in 2019

With respect, that answers a completely different question than was posed by the OP.

edit - the OP himself beat me to it.

Washington State is far from a high academic. The acceptance rate is 79.9%. Average SAT range is … Reading and Writing 510-610, Math 510-600.

Since I don’t know if their average accepted gpa is weighted or not I’ll go with the description …. Washington State University requires you to be around average in your high school class. You'll need a mix of A's and B's, and very few C's. If you took some AP or IB classes, this will help boost your weighted GPA and show your ability to take college classes.

A friend of mine is a very successful D3 coach. This was after a very successful college playing career at a ranked D1. He was once offered a job as head coach of an Ivy. He turned it down. One reason was it’s hard enough to recruit prospects for a winning program without having a lot of them ruled out on academics.

Chances are if a kid is that good (pro prospect) he will head for the ACC rather than Ivies. I heard about one Ivy coach who flat out asks prospects if they’re talking with ACC programs. If they are he stops pursuing them. He makes them come to him. He doesn’t want to waste his time.

@JCG posted:

With respect, that answers a completely different question than was posed by the OP.

edit - the OP himself beat me to it.

My apologies.

A few additional observations:

1) for schools that have a recruiting coordinator, the RC is (generally) not the head coach.  So for some schools you could have another point of contact for continuity which helps.

2) for D3 HA, most schools are well oiled machines (20-30 varsity sports teams with incoming classes  and slotted athletes for each sport).  It is not in the interest of the school (or AD) to upend a recruiting class and a decent amount goes into lining up proper academic fits so both sides have a mutual interest to keep it going.

3) as mentioned above, if speaking of HA D3, you wouldn’t have a bunch of transfers so a coach doesn’t really have his guys and the HA D3 recruiting verbal commitment cycle is fairly short (for most June through September with many ED1 apps due Nov1 ), so the window is not long enough for too much change.  (D1 with multiple years of potential commitments and scholarship money is a different animal. )

To you answer your questions specifically:

Anybody know what the impact is on recruiting when a HC leaves a program? ….Very minimal in HA D3 for that specific recruiting year with coach support and successful pre-reads if change is in the window between verbals (generally summer) and ED (late Fall).

Do the kids he was recruiting still get the coach support through admissions that they would have had if he was still there? Yes, because the player has had a successful pre-read and usually the list was submitted to the AD who has an interest in maintaining the integrity of process and a recruiting class given the available slots.  

If a kid was using a coaches ‘chip’ and coach support where academics were well below the schools’ norms, perhaps that would mean increased jeopardy if additional discussion with admissions was needed and the coach was gone but that is more nuanced.

Good stuff BBSBfan. Thanks for posting