10-year head coaching vet, former National Champion assistant named Cougars’ newest skipper:
I am thrilled and honored to be the head baseball coach at the University of Houston. I have spent my whole coaching career at both LSU and Lamar competing against them and have seen firsthand what a special place this is. In my time in college baseball they have come so close to making it to Omaha on several occasions and I am excited to take on the challenge of getting the program over that hump. Will Davis – Houston Baseball Head Coach
“I applaud Athletic Director Eddie Nuñez on his hiring of Will Davis as the new Head Baseball Coach at the University of Houston. This is a wonderful selection of a man whom I believe wholeheartedly will bring the Cougars back to a very competitive level in the Big 12 conference. Following in his father’s footsteps, Will Davis was born to be a college baseball coach and has worked every day from the day I first met him to become the best possible baseball coach. I always felt Will was wise beyond his years. He always had great instincts about the game of baseball and the players. He was a very loyal and outstanding assistant coach with me at LSU; and was a big part of the success we enjoyed in Baton Rouge. What Will did at Lamar for the last 10 years allowed him to become one of the most respected coaches in all of college baseball. He has earned this new opportunity and I have no doubt he will make Cougar Nation proud of its baseball program.” – Paul Mainieri, retired LSU baseball head coach
“Will Davis is an elite hire for the University of Houston. Coach Davis is an incredible program builder, energetic recruiter and consistent developer of both talented players and winning teams. Cougar fans should be so very thankful that Will has chosen to lead UH at a championship level.” – Jim Schlossnagle, Texas baseball head coach
“From the moment in the recruiting process that I met Will we hit it off instantly as I thought we saw the game the same way. When I got to school he became someone I could lean on that was willing to work as hard as I did. He was willing to do anything to help me get better and I am not surprised at all that he had that level of success at Lamar. This is a great hire by Houston and I can’t wait to see what he does at that program!” – Alex Bregman, MLB All-Star, World Series Champion, former LSU baseball student-athlete
Since the other one got locked up, I will ask again.
At this point I am solidly ambivalent about the hire. I don’t hate it like some seem to here, but I also don’t see a lot to get really excited about. I said on the other thread I was hoping whoever we brought in would be able to attract outstanding assistants. Davis is just bringing along his Southland assistants, who lead them to an RPI of 90. Looking it up, they were top 50 in WHIP and ERA, so there is that.
I’d love to hear from some folks who are genuinely excited about this hire and hear some reasons as to why.
I don’t know that I’m super excited, but I’m not outraged or disappointed either.
It’s always easier to recruit to a P4 school than to a Southland school, so I would NOT assume that an RPI of 90 will be the ceiling here as it was there.
And I’m not going to hold it against him if we suck in year one. We sucked in year one of Sampson and Fritz and turned out just fine from year two onward.
But by the end of year two, we had better see some improvement.
First point: We have financial constraints that impact our hiring for non-rev sports. With that in mind, I think we made a good hire. I think Will Davis has a good chance improve UH Baseball and compete at the upper levels of the B12. That specifically mean making regionals again.
Why? I judge programs (and head coaches) by how they do in their own conference. By that measure, Will Davis did a great job at Lamar.
AI does a good job of summarizing this. So here’s some Cut/Paste info:
Overall Southland Conference Performance
The Lamar Cardinals have won the most Southland Conference baseball games over the last four seasons (2023–2026), compiling approximately 70 league wins during this dominant stretch under former head coach Will Davis.
A closer look at their conference performance over these four seasons highlights their league supremacy:
2023 Season: Finished 3rd in the Southland with a 19-8 record.
2024 Season: Claimed the Southland regular-season championship outright with a 17-7 mark.
2025 Season: Secured another top-three finish with a 20-10 record.
2026 Season: Finished near the top of the conference again with an 18-10 SLC record, followed by a tournament championship.
Lamar Pitching Performance
The Lamar Cardinals have boasted the best overall pitching staff in the Southland Conference over the last four seasons (2023–2026). They consistently led or ranked near the top of the conference in team earned run average (ERA), strikeouts, and opponent batting average, ultimately backed by back-to-back Southland Pitcher of the Year honors. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
A closer look at the Cardinals’ statistical dominance and individual pitching accolades highlights their performance:
2026 Season: Lamar claimed the Southland Conference Regular Season and Tournament Titles. Their pitching staff featured senior right-hander Chris Olivier, who earned the Southland Conference Pitcher of the Year award, anchoring the rotation with a stellar ERA and a dominant performance in the conference tournament. [1, 2, 3]
2025 Season: The Cardinals paced the Southland in total strikeouts (posting nearly 500 across the overall season). Senior righty Chris Olivier also secured SLC Pitcher of the Year, and they finished as the conference’s regular-season champions. [1, 2, 3, 4]
• • 2023–2024 Seasons: The Cardinals maintained a historically stingy bullpen and starting rotation that consistently kept them at the top of the conference’s overall statistical rankings, preparing them for deep championship runs.
Excited is probably too strong. But vast majority think it’s a solid hire and that he will do well here.
I’m not excited about him but think it could work. It seems he figured something out between year 1-5 and 6-10 which is promising. Idk, it’s a bit meh for sure, but I’ve seen us make much worse hires in other sports since I’ve been a UH fan (see Dickey, Applewhite, Levine, Buchanan). I also think last softball hire was worse.
And don’t leave out the worst of all: Alvin Brooks.
Again, not super excited, but hardly outraged either.
Willing to give him two seasons to assess.
The sad thing is, it seems like some people here were acting like this hire was a Brooks (no HC experience, and his assistant time was primarily as a recruiter), or Dickey (out of college coaching or years, last season in college coaching were bad, most recent coaching experience was his daughter’s 8th grade team) type hire, and expressing comparable outrage. That’s silly.
He’s hardly unqualified, his most recent teams were a tourney team and conference champs, and he has some endorsements from people that really know the game, like Bregman.
He needed to get assistants from in the state that could recruit at a high level.
He didn’t.
He simply gifted the jobs to his two assistants….maybe some don’t realize how bad of a play that was.
And there is someone on the board that continues to tout Davis’ recruiting in the “golden triangle”, etc.
If anyone wants to know the actual truth….there are three levels of HS recruiting for baseball in Texas.
There are the high “A” level players which either get drafted or go to the SEC and ACC for the most part.
Davis has to be able to get a few of these guys EVERY year.
There are the “B” level kids….this is a much larger group….some are borderline “A” but most are mid-low D-1 players….some of them go D-1 JUCO if they don’t want to wait 3 years to get drafted.
His Texas recruits are from this level….and mostly the lower end of it.
Then you have the “C” level kids that are decent ball players and can be good quality on D2 and D3 teams.
I once had a kid that was overlooked in HS…didn’t play showcase ball until his junior year….i got him in at a D-3 here in state….freshman and sophomore year he was Conference MVP….transferred to a D-1 here in state and started at SS both years and was drafted.
Davis is going to have to find those players.
He has also lived in the portal….he will have to get a much higher class of player from the portal.
He will need to up his portal game to what Kansas/ASU has done this year.
Even still, you can’t live in the portal.
That’s why just bringing over his assistants are highly disappointing……especially the inexperienced pitching coach….he did not deserve the job, period.
All, this to say that he and his “staff” are going to have to build relationships with the BIG players that coach at the best programs.
To say he has done that already is unequivocally false.
By late June I will be able to tell you if he has done that.
If I were him, I would not just focus on the Houston area….i would hit San Antonio/Round Rock as well as the Valley.
Lots of D-1 talent sometimes gets overlooked, especially the Valley as many of their teams don’t have kids whose parents can afford to pay entry fees into the best tournaments.
I already proved that your AI was wrong twice.
Depending on AI to make your point is weak….it means you don’t have the knowledge so you are asking someone else.
If that’s all you got then fine.
But don’t get upset when others that actually have FIRST hand knowledge in HS and College baseball disagree with you.
The AI crap being used to try to bolster the argument that the new guy is something more than what he is just doesn’t carry any weight. It’s obviously a collection of glowing reviews and articles. That’s fine if you’re just trying to be a cheerleader, but it’s meaningless to yammer about SLC success as a predictor for B12 success in anything. Not even worth reading, really.
He might turn out to be great, but his first two coaching hires are suspect. They might also turn out fine, but I’m not sure they’re even as good as the guys who are here. They’ll get the chance to prove themselves, though.
Let’s see how the roster shapes up. We’ll know a lot about his approach based on what guys he gets and where they come from. I agree that the whole I-35/37 corridor has some dudes that can really fill out a roster and that often get overlooked. This is how Tx State, Tarleton and sometimes UTRGV are able to punch above their weight class.
