Inside the UH Baseball Coaching Search — The Small List of Candidates, Entering Phase Two and Pro Baseball Reach Outs

Just days after the University of Houston parted ways with Todd Whitting as expected, the search for the school’s next baseball coach is already entering its second phase. UH athletic director Eddie Nuñez, senior deputy athletics director David Williams and executive senior associate athletics director Alvin Franklin took a divide and conquer approach, reaching out to potential contenders for the job, agents and others within the game and are now focusing on what Nuñez  tells PaperCity is “really a very small number” of true candidates.

“The list is how it should be,” Nuñez says. “I think too many people out there like to throw out a lot of names. Not to say that we didn’t look at them. But to say they’re on a list is a whole different discussion. There’s a lot of names being thrown out. Yes, we always want to make sure that we at least do our due diligence. We want to make sure that connections, anybody who has a connection — are they the right people?

“But it’s really a very small number that we’re focusing on.”

UH’s search for its first new baseball coach in 17 seasons is complicated by the fact that conference tournaments are going on this week and NCAA Regionals start next Friday, May 29, meaning many current head coaches and assistant coaches are still in the heart of their seasons. Nuñez tells PaperCity he is not opposed to hiring a coach whose team is still playing (especially an assistant), announcing the hire and letting them finish out the season with their current school.

“We’ve talked to some head coaches, some assistant coaches, some coaches outside of the business, some coaches in the professional game,” Nuñez says. “But it’s really a small number.”

For a potentially career making opportunity. University of Houston baseball has not made the NCAA Tournament since 2018, but it’s a Power 4 job in one of most fertile baseball recruiting areas in the country. With tons of upside. While UH’s Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) commitment to baseball is currently among the lowest in the Big 12, the athletic department’s corporate partnerships are on a major upswing (a new seven figure deal with one company is close to the finish line) and there is opportunity for a new coach who builds excitement to help spur more giving to the baseball program.

Whitting led UH to four NCAA Regional appearances in a five season span from 2014 to 2018, including a Super Regional run in which a 48-win Cougars team finished as the No. 11 ranked team in America (in 2014). That happened in a different conference in a whole different era of college sports really, but Houston has mattered in college baseball. Throughout its history.

“We’ve talked to some head coaches, some assistant coaches, some coaches outside of the business, some coaches in the professional game. But it’s really a small number.” — UH athletic director Eddie Nuñez

And even Whitting, the coach who was let go after finishing 12th, 11th and 14th in the 14 baseball-member Big 12, believes it can happen again.

“In this situation, I couldn’t get it done,” Whitting told PaperCity in the first and only interview he’s done since he was separated from his dream job. “There are teams obviously in that league that have bigger pockets. But you know, you’ve just got to find a way. That’s the UH way.

“That’s the way we’ve always been. “We haven’t always gotten the best players or had the best facilities and had the best stuff, but we found a way to win. We developed like crazy, players that may or may have not been wanted at other places. But it’s worked out great.

“Kind of lost that magic touch a little bit. But it’s an attractive university. It’s a tremendous school. And I wish the next guy the best of luck.”

University of Houston Baseball Coaching Candidate Truths

Who can bring the long lost magic back?

While Nuñez declined to talk about any specific candidates, multiple college athletic sources tell PaperCity that Lamar baseball coach Will Davis has been informally contacted. The 41-year-old Davis has coached Lamar for 10 seasons and is a former LSU player and assistant coach who knows Nuñez well from the UH athletic director’s run in the Tigers’ powerhouse athletic department.

USC pitching coach Sean Allen, a former University of Houston player and assistant coach who also had success as an assistant at the University of Texas, is also in the mix, according to sources.

Neither UTSA coach Pat Hallmark or Tulane coach Jay Uhlman were ever considered by the UH leadership, having been deemed not good fits for Houston before this search process even really officially started, sources tell PaperCity.

This will be fifth head coach that Eddie Nuñez has hired since being brought on as Houston’s athletic director job in August of 2024 (a hire first reported by PaperCity). The new baseball coach will join Matthew Mitchell (women’s basketball), Ben Williams (women’s soccer), Chrissy Schoonmaker (softball) and just hired women’s tennis coach Valeriya Zeleva as hires in Nuñez’s dramatic makeover of UH’s non-revenue sports. Landing a coach with experience and success recruiting in Texas is considered a priority for this baseball head coach hire, more so than with the other hires, PaperCity is told because of the realities of the college baseball landscape.

Nuñez and his lieutenants Williams and Franklin (who UH basketball coach Kelvin Sampson says is “going to be a great athletic director one day”) have a process for these searches, one that is geared towards identifying and then quickly targeting a few candidates.

“I don’t think it’s a perfect science,”  Nuñez tells PaperCity. “The one thing I’ve learned in my life and my career, from people that have had much more success than me in making decisions like this, is you’ve got to go after people with high character and high integrity.

“If you start the process with that than you’re going to know the person you’re bringing in is going to understand. Then after that, it’s about what experiences, what vision, what opportunity they have to help move the needle. Do they have that fire in their gut? All those kind of questions that come into play. . .

“And then understanding fit. It’s not about hiring somebody just because of fit. But understanding that every place is unique in its own way. And you have to find somebody that can help you understand that, can see it, can help that uniqueness of that school really be bright.”

For this baseball hire to hit, it might require the most unique set of skills yet.