Kingston

The thing about this hire that is stuck in my craw is the media. I absolutely refuse to believe that in this day in age that NO ONE knew this guy was in the running. Coverage of him went from: nonexistent to "he's interviewing" to "Still waiting on Sully" to "Suprise it's Kingston". Somewhere along the way someone knew that Kingston was the guy and they chose to keep running with the Sully conjecture. If you are able to come to grips with that all it really does is make your mind wander down the rabbit hole until you ultimately reach the point of: "If they were willing to use Sully as a smokescreen/click bait at the end, how do we know he was ever a real candidate in the first place?"

As far as the hire itself is concerned, if he was seen as being in the running from the outset and his merits displayed throughout, I doubt many would have an issue with the hire. I am hesitant about paying him 50% more than Holbrook.

Yeah from a national perspective it is a much more positive hire than muschamp was

I feel like it's been like this for the last 3 hires we've had
Martin, Muschamp, now this guy.

Other names being talked about and dominated the media.
Then bam we end up with the guys we currently have.

Maybe we are actually really good at controlling the media.

I think the media didn't talk about Kingston because they really weren't all that aware about him. He interviewed a little more than a week ago, and prior to that there were a ton of coaches who were expressing interest in the job. O'Sullivan is a big name in college baseball and he was targeted as top of the list from the beginning, so the media was all over that....


I always had my doubts we'd bring in O'Sullivan: he had to have some serious issues with UF or vice-versa, and I never discerned that, despite his gripes about the fan support. He was leading his program to multiple trips to Omaha, so I knew UF would fight to keep him.

He made it this season, and went all the way to the championship series, so the process for hiring our new coach had to be extended. And when he won the whole thing, I knew what little chance we had of getting him was dead in the water.

What I like about Kingston is he seems to be a young coach, but has head-coaching experience that Holbrook didn't have. He seems to have more of a sense of coaching fundamentals, but we'll have to see about that. His pitching coach was named as his replacement at USF, so perhaps he retains Coach Meyers, who IMO was the most effective coach on the staff during the Holbrook era....

In any case, it seems like USF was very sorry to see him leave, and by all accounts he's a solid recruiter. He has an excellent opportunity to succeed at the highest levels now....

I like the hire. He's young, had success, and primed to be a big time coach for a long stretch.

Hired Trip Couch away from Houston to be our Director of Player Personnel....I think Stuart Lake held that job before, as well as Director of Operations....