© Sara Diggins/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK
A bizarre circle has now been completed within in the state of Texas after a wild coaching change at Rice University. The Owls have hired their second leader of the 2025 baseball season, and he’ll take over immediately.
That hire is David Pierce, a fired Longhorns head coach that had previously been out of work. He’ll coach his first game on Friday when his new team takes on conference rival Florida Atlantic.
Rice is a proud baseball program that won the 2003 national championship and reached seven College World Series between 1997 and 2008. Unfortunately, they’ve been stuck in the mud as of late.
The Owls last won a Conference USA title in 2015, and they haven’t had a winning season since ’17. For that reason, they’re now introducing their third head coach in six years.
David Pierce takes over midway through the season after Rice fired previous leader Jose Cruz Jr. just 27 days into the season. His team was 2-14 at the time and riding a 10-game losing skid. The program acted fast in finding Cruz’s replacement.
Just four days after that firing was made public, Pierce was hired. He’ll be officially introduced on Wednesday and coach in his first series this weekend.
“Although it is unconventional to bring a new head coach in during the season, as soon as Coach Pierce and I came to an agreement that he would be our next head coach, he expressed his strong desire to start immediately.”
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Pierce had previously worked on the Rice staff under legendary coach Wayne Graham. He was an assistant on that ’03 title team. He spent eight seasons with the Owls before going onto become a head coach.
Pierce was hired at Texas in 2016, where he led the Longhorns to multiple CWS appearances. He was unable to win a championship, however, and was fired after the 2023 campaign.
Texas later swiped traitorous Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle as his replacement, who has the program sitting at 17-1 in their first year in the SEC. The Aggies, meanwhile, have struggled under new leadership.
David Pierce will now look to lead a new team in the Lone Star State after being canned by his last. The Owls likely won’t match up against the Longhorns this season with postseason hopes largely dashed. He should get a chance to face Texas at some point in the future, though.