Oklahoma Sooners Baseball: Oklahoma Parting Ways With Baseball Coach Pete Hughes

UPDATE (4:51 PM): It’s official. OU has confirmed the news.

After four seasons, Pete Hughes will no longer be the baseball coach of the Oklahoma Sooners. The news was first reported by Kendall Rogers and was confirmed by The Oklahoman Monday afternoon.

This is somewhat surprising when considering the fact that Hughes and the Sooners finally made it to a regional in 2017, but Oklahoma fans who follow the program closely have long been critical of him.

Hughes’ job appeared to be safe after a series victory over the TCU Horned Frogs in mid May, but the team crashed and burned from that point on. After a pair of frustrating losses to the Oklahoma State Cowboys, OU was swept out of the Big 12 Tournament by Texas and TCU. OU’s resume was good enough to get them into the NCAA Tournament, but they didn’t prove to be a serious contender once they got there. A pair of lopsided defeats to Louisville and Xavier turned out to be the decisive blows to Hughes’ career.

Prior to this past season, Hughes’ teams underachieved mightily, missing the NCAA Tournament three times despite having plenty of talent on the roster. Many of his in-game and personnel decisions were questionable at best, so fingers were pointed squarely at him for OU’s struggles. Having said all of that, I’m still surprised by this. I’m not sure where OU goes from here, but Skip Johnson (current OU pitching coach) is likely a name you’ll be hearing in the coming days.

What are your thoughts? Has Oklahoma made the right decision?