Baseball: Rest of the Way

[sharky]

I’d say it’s more about failed leadership through inept coaching. There’s ability in this team but it’s buried under bad decision making.

OK, Coach BaD, suppose you give us your starting lineup for the Friday night game against New Mexico State. This assignment should offer you no challenge whatsoever since you must attend every Diamond Dawg practice to justify your comments like the one shown above. One thing is obvious. Your comments are always after-the-fact. Yep, after the game has been played. You appear to be helpless to hide your elation in a loss. A win seems to ignite a depression that leaves you almost speechless.

You have expressed the opinion that Coach LB is routinely starting the wrong players while denying more deserving players an opportunity. Well, perhaps he heard you. In the Saturday game against Jax State he inserted a player in the lineup as the DH that most fans probably didn't know existed. That did not bode well. Coach LB also benched Safford for Smith at SS. Smith muffed a play that Safford has completed successfully numerous times during the course of the season. Smith was no factor on the offensive side either. It appears that no matter what he does, Coach LB cannot earn your approval.

[PawDawg]

Possibly a bonus or at least pride in 30 wins. They decided to make up the ulm game this week. 30 wins with this schedule is nothing to write home about

[Bone_afide_Dawg]

OK, Coach BaD, suppose you give us your starting lineup for the Friday night game against New Mexico State. This assignment should offer you no challenge whatsoever since you must attend every Diamond Dawg practice to justify your comments like the one shown above. One thing is obvious. Your comments are always after-the-fact. Yep, after the game has been played. You appear to be helpless to hide your elation in a loss. A win seems to ignite a depression that leaves you almost speechless.

You have expressed the opinion that Coach LB is routinely starting the wrong players while denying more deserving players an opportunity. Well, perhaps he heard you. In the Saturday game against Jax State he inserted a player in the lineup as the DH that most fans probably didn't know existed. That did not bode well. Coach LB also benched Safford for Smith at SS. Smith muffed a play that Safford has completed successfully numerous times during the course of the season. Smith was no factor on the offensive side either. It appears that no matter what he does, Coach LB cannot earn your approval.

I’ve already done that. If you want to catch up you can find it. I’m not doing your homework for you. The damage is done now anyway. You know that. Burroughs not playing other players has handicapped them for the remainder of the season and might very well have them portalling out after the season. If you’ve been paying attention I haven’t been promoting Smith. I’d rather see Coates at SS and Comeaux at 3rd where he was last year. As good as Comeaux was last year for Burroughs in a pinch as a true freshman he’ll probably be gone next year. Oh well, Burroughs will probably come up with some more players cut from LSU like Safford and Drost. Maybe you can explain how Tech picked to finish 2nd is going to be more like 4 or 5 if it isn’t all about coaching.

[sharky]

I’ve already done that. If you want to catch up you can find it. I’m not doing your homework for you. The damage is done now anyway. You know that. Burroughs not playing other players has handicapped them for the remainder of the season and might very well have them portalling out after the season. If you’ve been paying attention I haven’t been promoting Smith. I’d rather see Coates at SS and Comeaux at 3rd where he was last year. As good as Comeaux was last year for Burroughs in a pinch as a true freshman he’ll probably be gone next year. Oh well, Burroughs will probably come up with some more players cut from LSU like Safford and Drost. Maybe you can explain how Tech picked to finish 2nd is going to be more like 4 or 5 if it isn’t all about coaching.

Who did the picking? If it was the CUSA coaches, then they most probably based their votes on the past success of Coach LB. But regardless, their opinions were preseason before a single game was played. They weren't completely wrong though. Tech did enjoy first place for a very short time, and if my memory serves me correctly (I am to lazy to look it up to be sure) Tech was in second place for a short time.

The 2024 Dawgs had significant number of seniors on the team and graduation took its toll on the starting talent. The 2025 version, according to an announcer on one of the early games, has approximately 23 players that were not on the 2024 team. Some graduated and others took the portal. The transfer portal is wrecking the mid-major college athletic scene. Look what it did to our basketball team.

With almost half the players being new to Tech, I personally, am not sorely disappointed in the way this 2025 baseball team has performed. Perhaps you and I can agree on something. Fouts does not appear to be an effective pitching coach. I base my opinion on the observation that the pitching does not seem to improve over the course of the season. There seems to be more digression than improvement. And the bench seems to annually be full of pitchers who never seem to be able to contribute. They never get to the mound. This causes me to question Fouts ability to judge raw pitching talent when he sees it. The lack of good and dependable pitching talent seems to be an annually recurring problem. Last season Ethan Bates was the ace in the hole. There is none on the team this year. Coach LB needs to put his emotions aside, and do what it takes to remedy the challlenge. It just might be in his best interest to replace Fouts.

[Bone_afide_Dawg]

[/B]Who did the picking? If it was the CUSA coaches, then they most probably based their votes on the past success of Coach LB. But regardless, their opinions were preseason before a single game was played. They weren't completely wrong though. Tech did enjoy first place for a very short time, and if my memory serves me correctly (I am to lazy to look it up to be sure) Tech was in second place for a short time.

The 2024 Dawgs had significant number of seniors on the team and graduation took its toll on the starting talent. The 2025 version, according to an announcer on one of the early games, has approximately 23 players that were not on the 2024 team. Some graduated and others took the portal. The transfer portal is wrecking the mid-major college athletic scene. Look what it did to our basketball team.

With almost half the players being new to Tech, I personally, am not sorely disappointed in the way this 2025 baseball team has performed. Perhaps you and I can agree on something. Fouts does not appear to be an effective pitching coach. I base my opinion on the observation that the pitching does not seem to improve over the course of the season. There seems to be more digression than improvement. And the bench seems to annually be full of pitchers who never seem to be able to contribute. They never get to the mound. This causes me to question Fouts ability to judge raw pitching talent when he sees it. The lack of good and dependable pitching talent seems to be an annually recurring problem. Last season Ethan Bates was the ace in the hole. There is none on the team this year. Coach LB needs to put his emotions aside, and do what it takes to remedy the challlenge. It just might be in his best interest to replace Fouts.

I knew there was more that we’d agree about than what we don’t agree about. You’re 100% right about Fouts. Remember though he’s Burroughs responsibility. If he can’t do the job to the degree that LA Tech needs and he hasn’t been for every year that he’s been here then he shouldn’t be here. He’s not going to get better. He’s already proven that, so it’s on Burroughs to make a change. That’s part of what’s Burroughs biggest weakness. For whatever reason he hasn’t been able to make business decisions with his players or coaches. Instead the whole team suffers. I’m pretty sure the same is true for our new hitting coach. He’s had pretty much a whole season to make something of Safford and he hasn’t. There’s no way that our players don’t know all of this and more. When you’re talking about being at practice, they’re there, they know who can’t play but is playing. They know who can play but isn’t playing. Those things eat at the inside of a team and it shows at the heart of a team. Burroughs has got some serious changing to do if he’s going to become a legitimately good upper echelon D1 baseball coach. Right now I think we’re backsliding and it’s not because we have a young team.

[dawg80]

I have something to say about LB but have decided to wait until the season is completely over. Reason being there are enough games left that depending on how we do can sway my opinion.

At the moment, sitting at 28-22 and 12-11, we are pretty much where I expected we'd be at this time of the season. I was HOPING for better but ya just can't sidestep reality.

[Bone_afide_Dawg]

I have something to say about LB but have decided to wait until the season is completely over. Reason being there are enough games left that depending on how we do can sway my opinion.

At the moment, sitting at 28-22 and 12-11, we are pretty much where I expected we'd be at this time of the season. I was HOPING for better but ya just can't sidestep reality.

You’ve provoked me to put my money where my mouth is and I’m not waiting to the end of the season to say it. To be brutally blunt I don’t think Burroughs is taking Tech back to anymore NCAA playoffs. I think his run of unusually good teams is finished so they won’t be carrying him anymore. I also don’t think he’s a good enough manager of the program in any of the aspects that matter to create a genuinely good and well rounded team of NCAA playoff caliber for how the college game is evolving. I’d love to be wrong because I’ve invested a lot of time and money since my playing days supporting Tech sports for the last 47 years having had seasons tickets for all Tech sports at one time or another except for softball. Maybe I’ll try them next. One by one through Tech’s steadily deteriorating leadership and underachieving coaching I’ve quit following the other sports and now baseball is on the cutting line. For me to reinvest in baseball next year Burroughs is going to have to make me eat my words and pull off what I think will have to be a miracle run in the tournament.

[Bone_afide_Dawg]

Following up on this, like I’ve said for years now, if Tech is ever going to take their program to the next level, actually winning an NCAA regional and going further Burroughs is going to have to change how he manages basically everything. To repeat myself, if he doesn’t fundamentally reinvent himself I don’t think we’ll see Tech in another regional under him. The game with portaling and added scholarships demand it. So, in no particular order here’s my list of things he has to do or change to jump Tech up; replace every assistant coach on the team (since Tech can’t get the best players we need coaches who can develop and improve players. We haven’t done this in years. In fact our players generally actually get worse as the season progresses and the same is true the longer they’re at Tech. To me it looks and feels like the big problem regarding Burroughs’ assistants is his insecurity in starting fresh with new coaches. He’d rather avoid the unpleasantness of letting a coach go and just keep doing what’s more comfortable. Also included in this is that I don’t think Burroughs is really much of a skills coach himself. He can’t coach pitching or hitting so he’s at the mercy of who he can hire in and unfortunately Tech just isn’t a hot spot of where an assistant wants to be. That’s why despite his mediocrity Fouts is still at Tech), Burroughs also has do a way, way better job playing his bench to develop depth (Burroughs plays the favorite game with players and thus has a strong tendency to wear his guys out over the season while others rarely play and just rusty sitting. By example I don’t remember Ballard getting a single game off all year, so for a whole year our second string 2nd baseman, if we even have one, never played the position), something else is his seeming inability to cut players who don’t improve (not naming names anymore because they’re gone now, but 3-4 years of underachieving performances is ridiculously team defeating, demoralizing and it cannibalizes the opportunities for other more capable players. For more than a few years Tech has had at least 5 such players on the team), schedule better opponents (repeated weak opponents make for a weak RPI. Burroughs appears to schedule lazily. Maybe it’s for what he thinks will be hopefully easier wins over challenging his team. Unfortunately an easy schedule also leads to what I think makes for lazy coaching which apparently suits him just fine. Tech never plays an adaptive game to their opponents. We just play to get by with whatever happens, happens. If the game gives us a win we’ll take it. Tech has some good young players coming back, if we can hold on to them through the portal pirating process, so there’s potential in the future. With their potential they still need development which brings us back to where the circle starts… coaching and hopefully some new coaching for 2026. I really don’t foresee Burroughs being strong enough to replace Fouts. Wells needs to go and Miller too mainly because I don’t know what he does. Nothing is ever said about what he contributes to anything. Whether I continue to pay my money to follow Tech anymore will depend on what Burroughs does in the offseason. If everything stays the same coaching wise I’ll probably be leaving it with you. I could easily and happily spend more time with the grandkids and play a lot more golf with my sons.

Now it’s time for Dawg80’s assessment. I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts.

[dawg80]

You might be better served getting PawDawg to comment, since he thinks he's an expert and no one else knows a thing. But, I don't give a crap about his opinion, so...

Before the NMSU series I posted I was hoping for (and expecting) us to win that series and win ONE game in the conference tourney. That's exactly what we did, finishing out 3-3. Not surprised in the least. In fact, almost inning to inning, play to play I was predicting what would happen. Not many surprises.

As for LB, well, I think "operationally" he did about as well as a coach could have. The truth is our talent level is VERY, VERY mediocre and the team performed up to that all year. Our final record was, what 32-24, something like that. LB's fault lies with not putting together a better team, which includes not developing players. The other HUGE flaw in LB is his insistence on sticking with a starting lineup, a few pitchers, and wearing them out. Overall, given the roster, a 32-24 record is about what you would expect. Maybe a better coach, like PawDawg, could have squeezed out a few more wins, but ultimately the Diamond Dawgs would have ended up mediocre.

My overall grade for LB is a "C." He pretty much got out of the team what just about any other, most other, college baseball coach could have. Truth is, we weren't that talented.

I think it is time to clean house and start over. Yeah, I know, that's what we did in football firing Holtz and ended up with an even worse coach, Crummy. But it's worth that risk, otherwise we're stuck in a mediocre rut for the foreseeable future.

[Bone_afide_Dawg]

As predicted… Burroughs runs off a player with potential after playing Safford all season. I wonder who else will be included in leaving Burroughs’ sinking ship.
https://x.com/GrantComeaux1/status/1927491475345932379

[dawg80]

As predicted… Burroughs runs off a player with potential after playing Safford all season. I wonder who else will be included in leaving Burroughs’ sinking ship.
https://x.com/GrantComeaux1/status/1927491475345932379

I kept asking what he did to get in LB's doghouse...well now he'll end up in a better program and I hope he comes back to haunt LB. Maybe he'll hit a game-winning HR against LB's bunch.

LB needs to go. Time for a change.

[Bone_afide_Dawg]

Evidently Comeaux couldn’t get away from Burroughs quick enough. The underachieving season was barely over when he announced that he was leaving for what will undoubtedly be a much better situation. In actuality he was probably gone about mid-season. All season long I’ve said Comeaux should’ve been at 3rd base with Coates at SS. Of course if things had gone that way we all would’ve missed seeing the worst batting senior SS in the country (.185). That alone is an excellent example of Burroughs inept coaching and yet there’s more to go with it. Tech is in a very sad situation.

[Dwayne From Minden]

As predicted… Burroughs runs off a player with potential after playing Safford all season. I wonder who else will be included in leaving Burroughs’ sinking ship.
https://x.com/GrantComeaux1/status/1927491475345932379

You do realize he couldn't play short?

And that Safford was a much better SS than Coates, who they have penciled in at 2B next year

I honestly think he will end up at a lower level

[Bone_afide_Dawg]

Says who about not playing at SS? It’s also not all about fielding the position as it is contributing to the offense. Safford made the average play and then some on occasion but his contribution at the plate was extremely minimal. His average was worse every year and he only hit 1 HR. Comeaux could’ve done better if not for Burroughs lopsided favoritism.