'I'm not going anywhere': Paul Mainieri on his status at South Carolina
South Carolina baseball is at a low point right now. The 2025 Gamecocks have struggled mightily, and this weekend was especially tough as USC endured a sweep at the hands of the Florida Gators in which they were outscored at home 39-8, including 24-0 in the last nine innings of the series.
The poor results have generated a lot of speculation among the fan base about the future of the program and Mainieri’s place in it. However, the Gamecock skipper attempted to put those rumblings to rest on Monday.
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During a Monday appearance on 107.5 The Game’s “The Postgame Show” with Elijah Campbell and Jay Phillips, Mainieri bluntly said, “I’m not going anywhere” when asked about his future. “Sometimes the darkest days are before the brightest sun, you know? So, things are going to get better,” Mainieri stated optimistically. “As far as my status? There’s no conversations about anything. I came here to do a job.”
He added, “You’re going to have moments like this where you feel like it’s the end of the world because you’re having a tough time beating a team. But, listen, we’re trying to set the foundation and continue trying to work at it…We’re going to improve. It just takes time sometimes. When I say that ‘I have a one-year plan,’ that’s because I don’t want the players on this team to think that I’m looking ahead.”
Mainieri also pushed back against the criticism he faced for his comments saying that he “underestimated” how good the SEC was. The 67-year-old argued that he meant players are stronger and throw harder than he remembered. He said that the Gamecocks are “behind those teams” that have players like that. “A lot of the players on our team, we inherited them. Some of them, we recruited them…Our shortcomings have been exposed.”
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Even so, Mainieri said he remains hopeful that South Carolina baseball won’t go away quietly down the stretch. “We only have seven regular-season games left, so we’re going to do the best we can these last seven. Then, we’ll hopefully go make some noise at the SEC Tournament. We’re just going to take it one day at a time.”
Mainieri thinks a strong finish could help the future, too. “You have to have an eye on the future. While we’re coaching this team, we’re also recruiting like crazy. We’re having some good luck already. Hopefully, we’ll have a good summer recruiting and we’ll put a much better team out there on the field next year.”
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South Carolina baseball will travel to Auburn for a Thursday-Friday-Saturday series this week. Auburn is a top-10 team right now and will host the Gamecocks with two games on national television.
Thursday’s game one will begin at 8:00 p.m. on ESPNU. Then, Friday’s second contest will start at 7:00 p.m. and will stream on SEC Network+. First pitch for the series finale on Saturday will be at 3:30 p.m., and the game will broadcast on SEC Network.
