WVU

I have to ask. What is WVU? I would assume West Virginia, but you say your son wants to stay in state and your location is Alaska? Or Arkansas?

I'm guessing she is from Arkansas since her profile has her listed as being from Little Rock. At any rate, I'd be interested to hear any feedback on West Virginia. The Assistant Coach was at a recent showcase and spoke to my son during and after the showcase. Any thoughts on the program? Going to the Big 12 and it doesn't appear the facilities compare favorably to other Big 12 programs.

Don't know anything about the coaches. Have been to Morgantown and around the school...generally I like it.

But the #1 thing I would be concerned about sending my kid to WVU (in any sport but football) going forward would be the travel schedule with their new Big 12 conference affiliation. They are nowhere (geographically) close to any of the other schools and I think the travel is going to completely wear down their non-football sports teams.

Football teams often take charter flights. Basketball, baseball and all the others almost always take commercial flights and for WVU athletes that means a bus trip to Pittsburgh first.

There are strong rumors about Clemson, FSU...maybe Va Tech and Ga Tech leaving the ACC to go to the Big 12...that will help some, but until ALL of that happens, it is going to be brutal on academics and on the players energy level in general.

AD Oliver Luck Announced his refusal to extend Coach Van Zant's contract two days ago. Speculation is that the university's inclusion in the Big 12 prompted the move.

Here's a link to the announcement:

WVU Dismisses Head Coach

justbaseball and Prepster,
those are very interesting posts back to back, in my view.
The release about the HC being released does not come across, to me, as real warm and fuzzy.
One thing for sure: they will have an ample number of applications for the position and I mean ample.
Reportedly, Santa Clara had well into the 100's last year for their opening. When they hired the former HC at UCSD, the UC opening led to, reportedly, almost 1,000 applications.
What was very interesting is the entire new staff at UCSD, a DII, came from very experienced coaches at the DI level, including the top recruiter formerly at Fullerton.
The newly hired Head Coach had just accepted the top Assistant position only 3 weeks before at CSUN, where he moved from Nebraska, when their staff changed.
Sometimes this can make an outsider dizzy.
As justbaseball points out with great insight on how the conference moves can affect baseball, the new staff will need to be really good and work very, very, very hard.

quote:

Originally posted by Bear:
Rumors indicate Bruce Cameron is a short list favorite.

The Shenandoah Assistant?
If so, I might be getting to sound like a broken record...but this is just one more illustration that some of the very best coaches in college baseball coach at the DIII level.
If anyone wants another example, look at Whitworth College. The program had never been to a Regional. In his 4th year, with a roster filled with freshman and sophomores, Coach Ramsey and his team will be playing in Appleton on Friday.

Correction, rumors indicate the finalists have been chosen

Word on the street Pat Murphy will be the guy as the AD brought in 3 guys during the season to interview and one of them was a UVA coach.

quote:

Originally posted by TCWPreps:
Word on the street Pat Murphy will be the guy as the AD brought in 3 guys during the season to interview and one of them was a UVA coach.

Wow!

That's very interesting, to say the least!

Yes, rumor is Pat Murphy was supposed to be hired yesterday. That obviously did not happen. Look for something to happen soon. Also Kevin McMullen has interviewed

Latest is that Rod Delmonico (ex UT) will be in Morgantown this week...