While the rest of college baseball's elite spent Selection Monday circling regional sites and seeding brackets, Houston was doing something far less glamorous — sorting through the wreckage of a program that has lost its footing and trying to figure out who can rebuild it.
Athletic director Eddie Nuñez made the call that had been coming, declining to renew Todd Whitting's expiring contract that officially opened the search for the next face of Cougar baseball. It's a significant moment for a program that should be competing in the Big 12 era, not watching the tournament from the couch.
But if our sources are right, Nuñez may not have to look very far or for much longer for the next leader of Houston Cougar Baseball. All signs point strongly to Lamar's head coach, Will Davis, who remains the top target in Houston's search, and the logic practically writes itself.
Davis and Nuñez share history together at LSU, the kind of institutional trust you simply cannot manufacture in a cold interview room. Relationships built in Baton Rouge tend to hold weight, and this one clearly does.
While Texas associate head coach Nolan Cain, who was also another LSU connection, was briefly linked to the search before removing himself from consideration, Davis remains at the forefront of the Houston Cougars board, and frankly, his timing could not be better or more poetic.
Davis just delivered Lamar its first Southland Conference tournament title and NCAA Tournament bid since 2010. The Cardinals are heading to the College Station Regional to face No. 12 Texas A&M, Texas State, and USC. He is, at this very moment, doing exactly what Houston is desperately trying to do, and that's winning championships along with dancing in June.
That résumé matters. Davis, a former catcher for LSU from 2004, was a letterman on the 2004 College World Series team and a two-time SEC Academic Honor Roll selection before he eventually would transition to coaching at his alma mater. Davis spent eight seasons on staff with the Bayou Bengals, one of the most demanding developmental environments in the sport.
During his time with the Bayoun Bengals, he coached in four trips to the College World Series (2008, 2009, 2013, 2015), three SEC Championships (2009, 2012, 2015), and five SEC tournament titles (2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014).
He was also was assistant coach on the 2009 LSU National Championship team.
In 2017, he ventured on a new path that led him to Texas to take over at Lamar. His 289–231 record over ten seasons reflects a builder and someone who arrived at a program with modest resources and methodically turned it into a regional contender. That is precisely the profile Houston needs.
The Cougars are not a rebuilding project in the traditional sense. The infrastructure is there. The Big 12 platform is there. The recruiting territory is sitting in the middle of one of the deepest talent pools in the country. What has been missing is consistent direction, strong recruiting and postseason relevance. Houston hasn't been to Omaha since 1997. That drought is not a talent problem. It's a leadership problem.
Davis has shown he can lead. He has shown he can develop players, manage a program, and deliver when the moment calls for it. The question now is whether Nuñez can get the deal done quickly and convincingly enough to bring him from Beaumont to Houston. For a program eager to stop watching selection shows from the outside, making that call should be the easiest decision Eddie Nuñez makes all week, and it appears that it may be here sooner rather than later. Bayou 2 Bayou?
