New Texas Longhorns baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle has had quite the week.
Last Monday, he was one win away from leading Texas A&M to its first national title. The Aggies fell to the Tennessee Volunteers6-5 in the decisive game at Omaha’s Charles Schwab Field, but Schlossnagle’s night didn’t end after the final out. During a postgame news conference, he was asked about “a specific job opening” — the Longhorn job two hours down the road had opened up earlier in the day — where he gave an answer highlighted by the following statement:
“I took the job at Texas A&M to never take another job again.”
Less than 24 hours later, buzz emerged that Schlossnagle had taken the Texas job. The news was officially announced on Tuesday night. He was back in front of the media answering questions about his answers from two days prior on Wednesday — this time in Austin.
Exactly one week from Texas joining the SEC and Texas-Texas A&M becoming real again, Jim Schlossnagle’s social media timelines are now full of him touting the 12th Man from Omaha mere days ago alongside a new avatar of him in a Longhorns cap. College sports remains undefeated. pic.twitter.com/KwgpZwgHFF
There are a few lines in college sports that rarely get crossed. The interstate feud between the Aggies and Longhorns is one of them. Schlossnagle’s much-ballyhooed saga was reminiscent of college football’s yearly coaching carousel, where there have been more than a few instances of coaches departing after infamous soon-to-be last words. Here are some coaches leaving after memorable quotes suggesting otherwise.
In fairness, Riley was 100% correct when he emphatically shut down any rumors of him taking the LSU job during a Saturday night news conference after a 37-33 Bedlam loss to the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
The catch? By Sunday night, he had been announced as the head coach at USC. Star quarterback Caleb Williams followed Riley to Los Angeles from Norman. He would become a Heisman winner in the pairing’s first year in Southern California en route to an 11-1 regular season record. The Trojans fell to 7-5 in year two, however.
LSU didn’t land Riley to run the show in Baton Rouge, but athletic director Scott Woodward wasn’t done hunting in the carousel. Enter then-Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly, who was wrapping up his fifth consecutive 10+ win season with the Irish.
Kelly had previously joked after a senior day win over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in late November that it would have taken $250 million (as well as approval from his wife) to lure him away from South Bend. The Tigers couldn’t go that high, but they did muster up a 10-year, $95 million deal that evidently caught Kelly’s eye. The veteran head coach is now 20-7 across two seasons on the Bayou.
Before Steve Sarkisian helped build Texas into a College Football Playoff contender, the California native spent his early years as a coach on the West Coast. Sarkisian’s first head coaching gig came at Washington, following a successful stint as quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at USC.
Midway through his fifth season with the Huskies, the top gig opened up back at USC, also Sarkisian’s alma mater. Rumors abounded that Sarkisian would be heading back to Los Angeles. The former Trojan shut those rumors in October by saying he hoped to coach Washington even longer than Don James, who spent 18 years in Seattle.
By the second day of December, Sarkisian was the head coach at USC.
Graham boasts a unique spot in the pantheon of coaching carousel infamy. After one season with the Rice Owls the former Tulsa defensive coordinator bolted back to the Golden Hurricanes to accept the head coaching job there — two days after signing a contract extension with the Owls.
Four years later in Pittsburgh, Graham took off after another one-year stint at a gig. Following the conclusion of the 2011 campaign, three of Graham’s assistants on his Panther staff decamped for jobs across the country in Arizona. Graham blasted the trio as “nothing but mercenaries.” Two weeks later, though, he accepted the head coaching role at Arizona State.
It would be difficult for Saban to have put things more bluntly than he did in December of 2006, with rumors abuzz that the Crimson Tide were targeting the then-Dolphins coach to take over for the recently-fired Mike Shula.
Saban’s frank statement proved to be just words, however. The former national champion at LSU returned to the SEC to take the Alabama job weeks later, and the rest was history. Saban would win a national championship in his third year in Tuscaloosa, the start of a dynasty that would include five more national titles.
Petrino developed quite the reputation for looking elsewhere while coaching the Cardinals. In 2003, he denied being linked with a potential opening with the Auburn Tigers, before apologizing after it emerged that he met with officials from the school.
In 2004, he gave the “I’m not interested” line and signed a new contract in Louisville — before admitting days later he met with LSU officials about their opening. In the summer of 2006, he offered another affirmation of his commitment to the Cardinals saying “this is where I want to be” after another contract extension offer.
Six months later, Petrino took a job in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons.
Perhaps the most famous instance of a coach departing after conflicting last words, Tuberville offered as definitive of an assurance to Rebel fans as he could muster that he was happy with his job — joking that he’d only leave Oxford “in a pine box” when he was dead.
Tuberville presumably traveled in a more conventional manner when he headed across the Alabama/Mississippi border days later, en route to take the Auburn job.
Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Erik Swanson received relatively good news when an MRI earlier this week on his pitching elbow revealed no structural damage, according to multiple reports Friday.
Swanson was diagnosed with what the team called median nerve entrapment, or carpal tunnel syndrome, according to the reports. He will get a cortisone shot and rest his arm for a few days.
The Blue Jays announced earlier this week that Swanson was scheduled to meet with elbow surgeon Dr. Keith Meister on Thursday following the onset of discomfort in his right elbow during a recent bullpen session.
Swanson, 31, spent the past two seasons as a key piece of the Blue Jays’ bullpen and dealt with right forearm discomfort earlier this spring. He has not pitched in a spring training game this year.
He was 2-2 with a 5.03 ERA, 14 walks and 37 strikeouts in 39⅓ innings over 45 relief appearances last season.
In six seasons with the Seattle Mariners (2019-22) and Blue Jays, Swanson is 10-16 with 10 saves, a 3.97 ERA and a 1.116 WHIP, 69 walks and 278 strikeouts in 240 games (11 starts) over 260⅔ innings.
NORTH PORT, Fla. — Atlanta Braves third baseman Austin Riley left a Grapefruit League game Friday after a pitch hit him in the hand that he broke last season.
Riley got hit by a pitch from Jackson Rutledge in the first inning of the Braves’ game with the Washington Nationals. Riley held out his right hand immediately afterward in apparent pain before heading up the first base line.
Riley was removed when the Braves took the field in the top of the second inning.
The Braves announced that the two-time All-Star had been taken out of the game “as a precaution.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and MLB.com reported that X-rays were negative.
Riley, who turns 28 on April 2, batted .256 with a .322 on-base percentage, 19 homers and 56 RBIs last year. His season ended after he was hit in the right hand by a 97 mph fastball from Los Angeles Angels starter Jack Kochanowicz. An MRI revealed his hand was fractured.
Riley finished seventh in the MVP balloting in 2021, sixth in 2022 and seventh again in 2023. He hit at least 33 homers in each of those seasons.
“It’s an honor,” Rodon told reporters. “I’m excited. Just want to go out there and win the game.”
Boone said left-hander Max Fried will start the second game. The former Atlanta Braves standout signed an eight-year, $218 million free agent deal in the offseason.
Rodon, 32, is entering the third season of a six-year, $162 million deal. He is 19-17 with a 4.74 ERA in 46 starts with New York. A two-time All-Star, he won a career-best 16 games last season.
“I feel like his arsenal continues to evolve — the secondary stuff is getting stronger and stronger, the changeup becoming a real factor for him now,” Boone said of Rodon.
This will be Rodon’s second Opening Day start; he also received the honor in 2019 for the Chicago White Sox.
“Honestly it’s just the first game of the season,” Rodon said. “It’s another baseball game. Take it like another game, it just so happens to be the first game of the year.”