WACO, Texas — For the first time since 2015, Baylor will have a new skipper in its dugout at Baylor Ballpark.
After seven years, Steve Rodriguez resigned as head baseball coach Monday. It culminated a promising-yet-disappointing 2022 season.
In talking with a person well-connected with Baylor's athletic department, the idea was thrown out that the school wouldn't have to travel far to find its next baseball coach. In fact, this source said they would be surprised if Mack Rhoades stepped on to a plane in this search, at all.
Let's start on the eastern banks of Mountain Creek Lake in Dallas.
Dallas Baptist has built a consistent baseball program that's been in eight consecutive NCAA Tournaments under longtime head coach Dan Heefner. The Patriots are the school's lone Division I sport, with the rest of the school competing in Div. II.
Heefner has guided the Patriots to 10 total NCAA Tournaments, which included hosting duties in the 2011 Dallas Regional, and two Super Regionals.
He's been involved with Baylor and other Big 12 openings in recent years, reportedly turning the job down in 2015 when the Bears eventually hired Rodriguez away from Pepperdine. This year, Heefner's work paid what are arguably the biggest dividends they have, to date.
DBU got in to the NCAA field and is part of a debate on what bubble teams should have gotten regional bids.
The Patriots have seen more success than Baylor since Heefner took over the program ahead of the 2008 season, with one more super regional berth than the Bears and three more regional trips than BU in that time. That leads to the question of whether Heefner would make the move.
He's turned down Baylor before and, in 2016, reportedly interviewed at Texas. If he's going to make a move, given the success he's seen in Dallas, it's going to be because he sees a chance to finally get to Omaha.
And, to Baylor's credit, it's won a lot in recent years. In the 2021 calendar year, it made the Elite Eight in women's basketball, won the men's basketball national championship and won the Big 12 Conference in football.
Another candidate who will, or at least should, get a very long look from Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades, is right down the street and has lengthy Baylor connections.
McLennan Community College head coach Mitch Thompson is a former BU assistant coach under Steve Smith. He coached at Baylor Ballpark from 1995-2012, getting promoted to the top assistant job after the 2009 season and serving as the Bears' recruiting coordinator the entire time he was there.
Thompson took over the Highlanders' program ahead of the 2014 season and since then has guided MCC to four Junior College World Series, a National Runner-Up finish and a National Championship in 2021 while producing a lot of Division I talent, including in the Big 12. In fact, his Highlanders were eliminated Monday from the 2022 JCWS.
In his 18 seasons at Baylor, the Bears won three Big 12 championships and made 12 trips to NCAA regionals, three super regionals and the 2005 College World Series.
Since Thompson was reassigned from Baylor's baseball program in Feb. 2012, the Bears have not been back to Omaha. However, nobody in the athletic department administration remains at Baylor from 10 years ago.
The Highlanders have won all but one North Texas Junior College Athletic Conference championships on the field since Thompson's arrival at Bosque River Ballpark. They had to forfeit one due to an ineligible player in 2019.
Thompson is a renowned recruiter at all levels and known for his defensive prowess, serving as Auburn's defensive coordinator in 1994 before moving to Waco.
With Thompson, the question becomes whether he has grown to enjoy the junior college game more or whether he'd answer Baylor's call to move back across town.
He and his former MCC assistant, Chris Berry, have built powerhouses at McLennan with both making the 2022 Junior College World Series and breaking ground, recently, on major renovations as Bosque River Ballpark. Both the baseball and softball programs are getting turf fields and lights.
When talking to Thompson, he's passionate about the junior college game and about not just his school, but his conference. From 2018-21, the highest-selected junior college player in the Major League Baseball Draft was a McLennan prospect, including Logan Henderson, now in the Milwaukee Brewers organization, in 2021.
The point: Thompson has had success on both sides of Waco and I'd be shocked if he didn't get a call.
While those are the two names most associated with the job, including in talking with our source, there are more that wouldn't be surprising to see.
One is Texas State's Steven Trout.
Trout, in only three years, helped make history happen in San Marcos, including a No. 2 seed in the 2022 Stanford Regional. In 2022, his Bobcats finished the Sun Belt Conference Tournament with a 45-12 record, including a 27-5 record against SBC opponents and outright conference regular season championship.
Texas State entered the Sun Belt Tournament ranked as high as 11th, nationally, and beat Texas in Austin and Baylor at home.
Trout is a Texas native with an 80-52 mark in charge of the Bobcats. He also spent the 2012 season as the head coach at Texarkana College and the 2013-15 seasons as an assistant at Big 12 school West Virginia.
Finally, don't be surprised if Oklahoma State pitching coach Rob Walton becomes involved in the job, again. Walton was reportedly involved in the process in 2015, alongside Rodriguez and Heefner.
Walton has prior Div. I head coaching experience at Oral Roberts from 2004-12, where he guided the Golden Eagles to nine regionals and a super regional in 2006. In fact, every year Walton was in charge at ORU, it won a conference championship.
Since he's been in Stillwater, the Cowboys have made all nine NCAA Tournaments and three super regionals, hosting four regionals and a super regional in 2014. They also made the 2016 College World Series.
The NCAA Tournament begins Friday, meaning there's a chance this hire takes some time to flush out as candidates advance or get eliminated from the bracket.
So, in the mean time, enjoy some phenomenal baseball.
Also on KCENTV.com: