Clemson baseball coach Erik Bakich has ‘no plans to leave,’ reports say
Clemson baseball coach Erik Bakich has led the Tigers to consecutive national seeds and just delivered the program its first super regional appearance in 14 years.
That made his name a popular one on Monday afternoon after Texas, one of the country’s top programs, fired its coach, David Pierce, after eight seasons.
After Pierce’s firing, multiple media outlets mentioned Bakich, 46, as a possible candidate for the Longhorns, who have won the third most College World Series titles in NCAA history (six) and are set to enter the SEC, the nation’s best and most financially lucrative baseball conference.
Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball.com included Bakich on his hot board for Texas candidates and wrote that Clemson’s second-year coach “would be my primary candidate for the Texas job” if Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle and Tennessee coach Tony Vitello were unavailable.
Vitello’s Volunteers defeated Schlossnagle’s Aggies, 6-5, on Monday night in the third and decisive game of this year’s College World Series final in Omaha, Nebraska.
Horns247 also had Bakich as a top candidate on its initial hot board for the job.
But, according to multiple reports since, Tigers fans don’t need to worry. Roughly an hour after Pierce’s firing, The Clemson Insider, citing sources, reported that Bakich had “no plans to leave Clemson.”
The website reported that Bakich is “extremely happy” at Clemson and focused on winning a national championship with the Tigers, who have not reached the College World Series since 2010 and are tied for the second most appearances in the field without a national title (12), only trailing Florida State’s 24.
Larry Williams of TigerIllustrated.com, citing sources, also reported on Tuesday morning that Bakich, hired away from Michigan two years ago to replace Monte Lee, would not be a candidate for the Texas job.
Bakich is 88-35 and 40-20 in the ACC in two seasons at Clemson (which had missed consecutive NCAA Tournaments before he arrived) and has led the program to back-to-back NCAA regionals, a super regional this season and an ACC tournament championship in 2023.
Given that success and his name coming up in the Texas search, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him get a raise. Bakich was set to make $900,000 in 2023-24, according to the terms of his initial contract signed in June 2022 and obtained by The State via public records request.
Bakich — who came to the school after strong tenures at Maryland and Michigan in the Big Ten — is under contract through 2028 in a deal that tops out at $1.1 million that season. But his current annual salary ranks approximately 15th among Division I head coaches, according to data compiled by Front Office Sports last month.
Late last week, before Pierce was fired at Texas, the Clemson University Board of Trustees added a meeting to its calendar for this Thursday (June 27).
That meeting is not contract-related, though, according to a formal agenda released Tuesday and instead involves approval of tuition fees. The next Clemson board of trustees meeting is July 17-20, the BOT’s summer quarterly meeting.
This story was originally published June 25, 2024 at 9:52 AM.
