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Dave Wilson
Texas and Texas A&M meeting in baseball for the first time as SEC rivals didn’t need anything extra.
It didn’t need Texas coming in as No. 1. It didn’t need the resurgent Aggies coming off wins over the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country in back-to-back road series for the first time in school history.
Because it already had Jim Schlossnagle in the center of the storm.
Last year, Schlossnagle led Texas A&M to the championship series of the Men’s College World Series, where the Aggies were just seven outs away from their first national title in school history, before falling late in Game 2 against Tennessee. Then on Monday, June 24, as the Aggies and Vols prepared to play the deciding game, Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte announced that Texas and coach David Pierce had made a mutual decision to part ways. Hours later, the Vols pulled out a 6-5 win to crush A&M’s hopes and end a dream season.
The timing at Texas raised eyebrows with Aggies fans. Schlossnagle had worked with Del Conte at TCU, where Schlossnagle coached the Horned Frogs from 2004 to 2021, and the two are admittedly close friends.
So after the game, Schlossnagle was asked about his future with Texas A&M, and he didn’t reply too kindly.
“I think it’s pretty selfish of you to ask me that question, to be honest with you,” Schlossnagle said after the loss. “But I left my family to be the coach at Texas A&M. I took the job at Texas A&M to never take another job again. And that hasn’t changed in my mind.”
But sure enough, by Tuesday, June 25, Schlossnagle was the new coach at Texas, and Del Conte regaled reporters with his tale of meeting the coach in a cemetery in Snook, Texas, about 12 miles outside of College Station, when the coach returned from Omaha.
“I left at the crack of dawn, and I knew I could not be seen anywhere in College Station, so I went to the Snook Cemetery and waited for [Schlossnagle] to get back,” Del Conte said. “The Snook Cemetery will go down in history.”
The timing was stunning. For the Longhorns, it was the ultimate power move. For the Aggies, it was the ultimate betrayal. At his introductory news conference, Schlossnagle did apologize for his response after Game 3 of the MCWS, but it did little to quell the negative reaction.
“I had an idea it would be nuclear, but I didn’t know that it would be apocalyptic,” Schlossnagle told ESPN’s Paul Finebaum. “But that just shows you the passion of the 12th Man, to be honest with you. You can’t ask people to be passionate and support your program the way I did when I was there, or the way you do when you’re at a great school like that. And then when something negative happens, or a change, then there’s going to be a reaction to that.”
There are the initial photos, with hitting coach Michael Earley making the move to Austin with Schlossnagle and being introduced in a Longhorns polo. Just days later, the Aggies brought him back as their new head coach.
So if by chance the Aggies cruise past the Snook Cemetery on their way to Austin, they’ll be ready to enter a charged atmosphere, with ticket prices commanding a premium — as of midday Thursday, the cheapest ticket according to Vivid Seats was $80 — and a rowdy atmosphere expected at Texas’ UFCU Disch-Falk Field. They have met nearly 400 times in baseball and can’t even seem to agree when they first played, or what the series record is. According to ESPN Research, the Longhorns say the first game was in 1903 and they lead the series 244-132-5, while the Aggies say 1904 and 240-132-5.
This week, Schlossnagle attempted to temper the conversation around him.
“Those kinds of series — Texas and Texas A&M — those things are way bigger than any coach or any person or player,” Schlossnagle told reporters on Saturday. “That’s been going on for a really long time, and certainly going to be going on long after all of us in this room are gone. I’m sure it will be a great time.”
Still, this one’s not bigger than any person, but Schlossnagle will be the main character in the whole series (Friday, 8 ET, SEC Network; Saturday and Sunday, 4 ET, ESPN2).
His coaching acumen is not up for debate, which the Aggies and Longhorns have both witnessed. The Aggies began as the preseason No. 1 with 10 of the 16 SEC coaches voting them as their preseason conference favorites. Then, from late February to early March, Texas A&M lost five games, to Cal Poly, Texas State, Arizona, Oklahoma State and UTSA in a six-game stretch and were swept in their first two SEC series by Alabama and Vanderbilt. After injuries to Caden Sorrell and Gavin Grahovac, the Aggies limped into April at 13-14 overall with a 1-8 record in the SEC.
Texas, meanwhile, has lost five games all season and is now No. 1 with a three-game lead in the SEC standings and only four series remaining. In their first season in the SEC, the Longhorns are 16-2 in league play, tied for the second-most SEC wins at this point since the conference expanded in 1992, according to ESPN Research.
But the Aggies (24-16 overall and 8-10 in the SEC) look like a resurgent bunch, going 11-2 in April, with big SEC series wins against then-No. 1 Tennessee and then-No. 2 Arkansas. Now, they get a chance at another No. 1 in the Longhorns.
Aggies fans are familiar with the work of Texas’ new pitching coach Max Weiner, and that has been a strength for the Longhorns this season, with an SEC-leading 2.94 ERA, second-best nationally, limiting opponents to a .210 average. There are seven SEC pitchers with an ERA under 3.00, and three are Longhorns: Dylan Volantis (first at 0.47), Max Grubbs (fifth at 1.71) and Ruger Riojas (seventh at 2.97)
The Aggies will combat that with the hot bat of All-American Jace LaViolette, who was part of those early struggles, but now leads the SEC in home runs, RBIs and OPS in April. As a result, the Aggies, who averaged 4.4 runs with 10 total homers in that 1-8 conference start, are averaging nearly 10 runs per game with 25 homers in their nine league games in April.
The Aggies dispatched Sam Houston 13-3 on Tuesday night in seven innings to clear the decks for their return to Austin behind two home runs from Blake Binderup, a College Station native.
“Now that the game’s over from today, I’m sure there’s a little bit of thoughts creeping into people’s minds about where we’re going, who we’re playing, who our former coach used to be,” Binderup said. “At the end of the day, it’s just baseball. It’s a business trip. We’re going to have fun, but also, the goal is to win.”
Win what might be the most important game and series yet in this storied rivalry. And maybe even bigger than when the two teams faced off in the Men’s College World Series in 2022, one that saw the Aggies come out on top.
For Earley, who will be facing his former boss, he’s hoping to keep emotions in check.
“We can’t shy away,” Earley said. “I know that the storyline is there. Bigger this year probably than it will ever be, and it is what it is.”
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