Paul Mainieri on South Carolina struggles before LSU series | LSU

Paul Mainieri has gone through this before. He just thought that he wouldn’t have to do it again.

Mainieri believed the South Carolina team he inherited had some talent, enough so that the Gamecocks could compete immediately in the toughest conference in college baseball.

He didn’t think his first year at his new school would be as difficult as it was in 2007, his first season at LSU.

“In the fall, I thought there were a few pieces,” Mainieri told The Advocate.

But after getting swept at Clemson during nonconference play, Mainieri recognized shortcomings with his new team. They proved to be holes he couldn’t fill during Southeastern Conference play.

“The conference is just so tough. You know, it’s unforgiving,” Mainieri said. “And our schedule in particular was really difficult this year, and it exposed our limitations, where we have them.”

South Carolina holds a 5-22 record in the SEC. Mainieri’s team is 27-26 overall and has won only one series in conference play, taking down Ole Miss twice last month.

The Gamecocks are nowhere near the postseason picture heading into this weekend’s series against LSU beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday (SEC Network) in Columbia, South Carolina.

“I forgot how hard it is to win college baseball games, I guess,” Mainieri said.

Mainieri’s difficulties this season in some ways mirror what happened in 2007, when he left Notre Dame for Baton Rouge to replace Smoke Laval.

The Tigers were 29-26-1 that season and went just 12-17-1 in SEC play. Mainieri knew he’d have to take his lumps, but his confidence never wavered when it came to whether he could turn the program around.

“I told the team that, ‘This will be the last year that LSU was ever taken lightly again,’ ” Mainieri said. “And it’s a pretty bold comment, based upon what had happened in the first year. But I don’t think LSU has been taken lightly again since then.”

The Tigers went to Omaha the next season before winning their sixth national championship in 2009. But before they could find that level of success, they had to build the foundation in 2007.

That meant turning to freshmen such as Jared Mitchell, Sean Ochinko, Ryan Schimpf and Blake Dean. Dean led the Tigers in batting average and started every game.

“If we’re not going to win at a high level, at least I’m going to get these good freshmen a lot of experience and playing time, so it’ll pay off down the road,” Mainieri said. “And it certainly did with that group of guys at LSU.”

Mainieri has deployed a similar strategy at South Carolina, hoping that freshmen such as KJ Scobey and Beau Hollins can help turn around a program that won back-to-back national championships in 2010-11.

“They’ve had up-and-down moments, just like the kids did way back in the 2007 season,” Mainieri said. “But they’ve also shown what they’re capable of doing at times.”

But a lot has changed since Mainieri retired at LSU after the 2021 season, and even more about the game has evolved since 2007.

There’s NIL. There’s the transfer portal. There’s more pitchers than ever throwing 95-plus miles per hour, and more hitters than ever strong enough to consistently hit balls out of the park.

Mainieri knew these were hurdles he’d have to tackle when he decided to return to the dugout last summer, but the sheer impact of it all caught him a bit off-guard.

“The strength of the players, the velocities of the pitchers, that has been a big change since I retired four years ago,” Mainieri said. “I was telling someone the other day, we’re beating Ole Miss 5-1 in the sixth inning or something, and they bring a guy in out of the pen throwing 100 miles an hour.

“I remember when Jaden Hill touched 96 mph in a fall game, and how everybody oohed and ahhed. I remember Alex Lange’s first pitch of his career (was 95 mph) … and you could hear the buzz throughout the crowd.”

This brutal reality has, in part, led to South Carolina being third-to-last in the SEC in home runs (27) and second-to-last in ERA (9.27).

“We’ve just struggled on the mound mightily,” Mainieri said. “You just look at our statistics, and it’s easy to see that.”

Acquiring the horses necessary to compete in the SEC is the next step for Mainieri. He said he’s already hard at work on the recruiting trail for next year and beyond.

But recruiting high school players is just a slice of the pie in the modern era of college baseball. Adding immediate impact transfers with the help of sufficient NIL funds is a component of roster building that has become equally crucial in 2025.

“When I first got here last summer, we lost a lot of recruiting battles because other schools were giving a more, shall I say, appealing package to kids,” Mainieri said. “That’s the reality of the world we live in now. The schools that have a lot of money and are willing to give it to the players are getting the best players.

“We were playing Tennessee, for example, and the first baseman (Andrew Fischer) and the No. 1 starting pitcher (Liam Doyle) both played for Ole Miss last year, and both had a lot of success for Ole Miss last year. Why would they change schools from Ole Miss to Tennessee? Because they like the color orange? I mean, let’s be honest.”

Mainieri is still confident he can get South Carolina back to where it was 15 years ago. It’s a feat he already accomplished at LSU.

But he knows it’s not going to be easy.

“We just have to upgrade and get better, like we did after the first year at LSU,” Mainieri said. “And hopefully we will. We’re all working like crazy on recruiting for next year.”