Making the case for and against hiring Landon Powell as South Carolina's next baseball coach
For the first time since 2017, South Carolina is looking for a new head baseball coach.
One of the coaching candidates the Gamecocks are considering is North Greenville head coach Landon Powell. Here are the reasons for why and why not the Gamecocks should look to hire Powell as their next coach.
Why South Carolina should hire Powell
Though currently coaching in Division II baseball, Powell has led North Greenville to four regular season conference championships between 2018-2023 and has won five conference tournament championships from 2015-2022.
Additionally, Powell and North Greenville made appearances in the Division II NCAA Tournament six times in the past nine seasons, including winning the Division II National Championship in 2022.
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Powell’s alma mater is the University of South Carolina, where he played four seasons of college baseball and graduated in 2004. So he knows what the expectations are year in and year out. And he’s also a household name in the program’s history.
Having a coach who coaches for his alma mater may be just what South Carolina needs.
A coach who once played baseball at the school he would coach at may add an element of understanding school history that not any other coaching candidate could offer.
It also should not take an expensive offer to bring Powell in. As a former player who is still fifth in school history for home runs, Powell would almost certainly accept an offer from South Carolina rather quickly.
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Why South Carolina should not hire Powell
Though Powell has had a lot of success with winning at the Division II level, winning at the next level of college baseball remains to be seen. Quite simply, Division II baseball is not Division I baseball. More specifically, Division II is not the SEC.
Making the jump from the Carolinas Conference of Division II to the SEC is a big one. The SEC got 11 out of its 14 teams into this season’s NCAA Tournament.
Of the 11 teams that made the NCAA Tournament, five of them played host to a first round regional.
Lack of experience playing against the top teams of college baseball will almost surely put a lot of pressure on Powell, who would coach a program that is looking to make a run to Omaha in the tournament.
Hiring a coach out of Division II all the way up to a top conference in Division I that will only get stronger with the looming addition of Oklahoma and Texas is a huge risk to take.
