Texas A&M baseball coaching search: Virginia's Brian O'Connor reportedly not a candidate for job opening

Texas A&M now knows of at least one head coaching candidate who won’t take the Aggie baseball gig, as Virginia’s Brian O’Connor reportedly plans to stay with the Cavaliers.

Virginia beat writer Greg Madia had the scoop Friday morning, tweeting out that O’Connor isn’t leaving for A&M: “Sources: Brian O’Connor isn’t a candidate at Texas A&M, never talked to the Aggies and is staying put at UVa.”

Everyone knows by now that former Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle pulled about as poor a move as he possibly could as a head coach. Just after losing in the final game of the College World Series, Schlossnagle denied the Texas rumors and jumped down one reporter’s throat for asking if he was leaving — only to then accept the Texas job not even a day later.

Regardless of how it went down, the Aggies need a new coach and it appears the search is still very open after Brian O’Connor’s name has now been removed from consideration.

Insider names top candidates at A&M

D1 Baseball’s Kendall Rogers recently identified three candidates for the job, including O’Connor

“Brian O’Connor of Virginia would be one that would certainly be in the mix,” Rogers said. “You know he’s a guy that has been a Virginia lifer, was at Notre Dame and has been to Omaha multiple times. won a national championship. What is really interesting thing about O’Connor — and I had somebody reach out to me on Twitter go ‘Brian O’Connor — there’s no shot he leaves.’”

Well, that Twitter commenter was ultimately correct.

Never say never. Because like I said with Jim and Texas. Never say never. Number two is the ACC is a different animal than the SEC right now. There’s dissension within the ACC.

Of course, since O’Connor didn’t work out, backup plans are needed. And an all-too familiar name to Texas A&M fans should be the Aggies’ first phone call, according to Rogers.

“He’s not leaving, but you’ve got to call Tony Vitello, he’s got Aggies in his family,” Rogers continued. “You’ve got to at least call and be like, ‘Hey, any interest?’”

Heck, that seems even less likely than O’Connor. So there’s another SEC name that Rodgers believes could be worth considering.

“From there, the other people I would at least take a gander at would be Kevin O’Sullivan. He’s made it abundantly clear that Florida needs some help on NIL fronts. Like, he made it very clear. He’s a guy that if he went to A&M, he would have a lot of NIL money from what I’m hearing — a lot of money. So I think there are coaches out there at an elite level that I think would have a pretty decent shot with.”

While Vitello is a stretch, O’Sullivan is coming off two-straight runs to the College World Series with the Florida Gators and also has a championship under his belt back in 2017.

If one thing is for sure, Texas A&M is looking at the very top of college baseball’s coaching industry for Jim Schlossnagle’s replacement. According to Rogers, however, the Aggies aren’t expected to have to wait to find out for much longer.

On3’s Barkley Truax also contributed to this report