re: SC hiring Paul is equivalent to the Les Miles hire by Kansas.

Even more similar to their hire of Lou Holtz. That didn’t work out too well. I’m not sure this is all fact based.

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Even more similar to their hire of Lou Holtz. That didn’t work out too well.

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Lou Holtz was winning more games per year there than anyone in the previous 20 years did.

not anything amazing, but pretty good by their standards.

I just don’t see him being prepared for the NIL movement.
Shite isn’t the same as it was 3 years ago.
He better get a hungry young staff of coaches that get todays game or it will be a short lived stint out east.

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Two of those people don’t stand to gain anything by saying otherwise. And one of them has no reason to know otherwise.

The fourth may or may not know differently.

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Occam’s razor is on my side…

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He'll be 70 in 3 years. I'd be willing to bet you he'll coach less than 4 years.

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Les Miles coached 2 years at Kansas.

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Good solid men(for the most part)

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We found out Les is a scumbag. Paul is a good man.

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Les Miles coached 2 years at Kansas.

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That's because he was fired.

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If you're right about this then it means that Mainieri lied about it, Scott Woodward lied about it, Skip Bertman lied about it and Jay Johnson lied and continues to lie about it.

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He is right about it, and yes, those guys lied about it. LSU baseball had turned ugly, and it was as painful to watch as late-years Jim Mora Saints football. CPM was pushed out as everyone close to the program knows, one of whom told me.

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I never liked Paul Mainieri as coach of LSU, he played Mosquito Ball instead of Gorilla Ball and always threw his players under the bus.
I hope he drives South Carolina to the bottom of the SEC and burns out again of coaching.

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In 15 years the guy won a National Championship, played for another, went to five CWS and only missed the postseason twice (his first season during a rebuild and another year where LSU kind of got hosed) and you "never" liked him?

Paul didn't single-handedly choose to go away from the "Gorilla ball" approach of the 1990's. The NCAA significantly changed the bats in 2010 which cut the HR rate nearly in half in 1 year. That, coupled with the greater emphasis in cracking down on steroids at all levels in the 2000's led to all of that throughout baseball. Skips teams had a lot of juiced up dudes swinging ridiculously light metal bats. Certainly, I'm not saying he was "wrong" in that approach. Everyone was doing the same thing. LSU was just much better at it. But the game changed.

If you want to say things had gotten stale with Paul toward the end of his career and it looked like the level of his success had plateaued (maybe even started to decline), I'd agree. If you want to say he didn't fully adapt when the HR started to become a bigger part of the game again, I'd also agree. But to say you "never" liked the second most successful HC in the history of LSU baseball is ridiculous.

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All the best to him beginning anew at age 66, but 3 years ago he was burned out mentally and physically, with health issues and some depression after his father passed, failed to recruit, and was drained. Will be a big challenge for him. Maybe the plan is to develop Terry Rooney as the next head coach?

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He did sign Crews, Floyd, Morgan, Beloso, Travinski, Milazo, Thompson, Dugas, in his final seasons....all of whom were core pieces in the 2023 championship. So it's hard to say he completely "failed to recruit". I think the burnout was compounded by the crushing expectations that come with being the LSU HC. LSU went to the championship series in 2017. After that they went to the Super Regionals 2x and a Regional. At most places that is a very successful stretch. Including South Carolina over the last 10 years. LSU is not most places. I'm sure it can be stressful when really good isn't good enough.

I never got the sense Paul truly wanted to leave in 2021. He just saw the relationship between he and the supporters had kind of run its course and there wasn't rabid fan support for him as there was earlier in his career. So he was allowed to leave on his own terms in order to avoid the inevitable disappointment of being told to leave.

Now he gets to go to a really good program with good support with probably a renewed sense of enthusiasm and a fanbase that won't (at least early on) have crushing expectations. Best case scenario he gets a few more years of enjoyment coaching baseball and elevates USC back to a CWS appearance or two...which they would be very happy with considering they haven't been there since 2012. There will definitely be stress with the job. But nothing like at LSU.