Football is over and I am not really into hoops, so it's time to start looking at the emerald chessboard...

Baseball America Ranks USC at #11 in Recruiting.

USC is No. 11 in the 2011 Recruiting Class Rankings released by Baseball America on October 20. The Trojans class had been ranked as high as No. 5 by Collegiate Baseball Magazine earlier this fall.

The 19-man USC recruiting class includes 12 position players and seven pitchers. Six of the players were drafted in the 2011 MLB Draft and two undrafted players were All-Americans, all of whom decided to enroll at USC instead of beginning a professional career.

"We are very excited about our incoming class of players," said USC Head Coach Frank Cruz. "There is a lot of talent in this recruiting class with a good balance of pitching and offense. We are obviously very excited when this many players who were drafted decide to come to school instead."

I know Frank Cruz wasn't the coach that many wanted to guide USC Baseball back to prominence, me included, but I am more than willing to give him a chance.

Before you know it the season will start!

It is not the best draft but I am pulling Nikola to slip into the lottery!

I will be in a meeting so I will be a little late in jumping on board

Leave your comments here

Why does this matter?

Because it is pretty clear that Pat Haden didn't interview him to at least take a shot...

Serrano, 46, returns to the program where he had his first Division I job as an assistant coach between 1995 and 1996. His first trip to Omaha came with the 1995 Vols featuring Todd Helton and R.A. Dickey. He is one of 11 coaches to take two different programs to the College World Series and has a career record of 289-139-1 in seven seasons as a Division I coach.

He led UC Irvine to the 2007 CWS in his third season, and he led Cal State Fullerton to Omaha in 2009.

"After an overwhelming 24 hours of events, I have made the decision to leave a great program at Cal State Fullerton to take on the challenge of returning the University of Tennessee to a spot among the nation's elite," Serrano said. "While this decision was not an easy one, it makes it a little easier to say yes when you have an entire family completely in support for you."

Anyone else think Serrano might have been interested in leading the most storied program in college baseball history?

The guy is a winner...I have no doubt that he would have done great things at USC.

If Haden had only conducted the thorough coaching search that he promised...

This development is a little odd to me. USC is 20-28 since Cruz took over...I know he took over a bit of a mess but how does that merit a promotion?

Cruz, an assistant at USC in the glory days of the 1990s, inherited a program that was 39-102 in Pac-10 play the previous four years and finished last in the conference last season. The Trojans are currently 10-11 in Pac-10 play and on course to their best conference finish since 2005.

My concern is that Haden pulled the trigger a little too fast...not that he waited too long.

No disrespect to Cruz, but if he was such big deal during USC's "glory days" then why didn't he get the job when Garrett fired Gillespie?

Don't even get me started on that mess...

Why not see who might become available after the season is over?

There is a picture on RipsIt with the cation..."Cruz has helped restore the pride to the program."

Can somebody please tell me how? I am willing to be convinced that this was the right move, but I want to know what Cruz has done to restore the pride back in the program. That is VERY tall order when you consider the programs history.

Tell me why this is a great hire....

Granted, we may be just five days away from the biggest game on the gridiron Saturday against Washington in a nationally televised home date, but Kendall Rogers of Yahoo! Sports has some interesting tidbits from Heritage Hall regarding the baseball side of things. Regarding the firing of manager Chad Kreuter, Yahoo! Sports notes the following:

The decision to part ways with Kreuter made sense. Frankly, it was surprising the Trojans waited so long to make a change. Claiming to be visionaries, they were left with no choice but to sever ties with Kreuter after the Trojans failed to make an NCAA postseason appearance and ended last season with a dismal 28-32 record.

"Kreuter did some nice things at USC, especially on the academic side, but this was something that was in the works when I took the job," Haden said. "I hated to have to make that type of decision a few days after taking over, but I didn't want our recruits that were drafted making a decision on whether to sign without knowing who would be in charge of the program."

Rather interesting, since it was widely reported, at least initially, that Haden was the man behind the Kreuter firing, earning him tons of praise from the message board geeks. Subsequently, if Haden's wasn't solely responsible for the decision to let Kreuter walk, how much does this change the perception of him?

I'm not sure it does, or even should, but nonetheless, it does raise the question as to whether Haden is as proactive as many have labeled him to be.

Feel free to sound off.

With no shortage of Dodger fans puttering around the blogosphere and Conquest Chronicles, I'm sure many of you are already aware of the fact that Joe Torre will step down as manager of the Blue Crew at the end of the season and will be replaced by Don Mattingly in 2011. So I strongly suspect that I'm not really breaking any news, which means we can now all now speculate as to his managerial future instead.

Will he return to the Big Apple to save Omar Minaya's job? Unlikely. Minaya's already toast. What about leaving for the Windy City to manage the Cubs? Also unlikely. Wrigley isn't worth all that hassle. Plus, they're still cursed, right? So, obviously, there is only one possible destination for Torre, and that is staying in Southern California, to manage our very own USC Trojans. 

Do I sound crazy? Most definitely. But here's why should Torre leave the professional ranks for collegiate baseball.

1.) Logistically, it makes sense. He's already living in Los Angeles, and he has a home in Hawaii as well. Why depart for an entirely new part of the country, especially when you can remain in the City of Angels?

2.) USC is still USC. It's a very powerful place. Well, that's what Lane Kiffin told me.

3.) Mike Garrett is no longer here. 

4.) To reemphasize: Mike Garrett is no longer the athletic director at the University of Southern California.

5.) Subsequently, working under Pat Haden is infinitely better than working under Frank McCourt.

6.) At USC, there will never be payroll issues, and nobody will ever be reluctant to spend money on top-flight talent.

7.) Mark Prior used to play at 'SC and nobody has ever had better sideburns than Prior. Not even Joe Mauer.

8.) Unless you consider Daily Trojan reporters to be hounding, Torre won't have to deal with a hostile press. Yankees problem fixed.

9.) Philadelphia doesn't feature a prominent college hardball team so there shouldn't be an issue in leading the Trojans to the College World Series. Dodgers Problem #1 fixed.

10.) The higher-ups in Heritage Hall won't force him to take on any clinically insane left fielders. Dodgers Problem #2 fixed.

Well, I guess I'm pretty convincing. The introductory press conference should be next week.

Pat Haden isn't messing around. In just his second week as the school's athletic director, the former Trojan quarterback took decisive action toward fixing the once proud USC baseball program by firing its inept leader - Chad Kreuter, sources told Gary Klein of the Los Angeles Times earlier this afternoon. An official announcement is expected to come later today, which will likely read as:

"Chad Kreuter is not a very good baseball coach, and we aren't going to employ individuals who aren't competent at their so-called professions."

Yes, it's about time. Granted, it's about two years too late, but at the very least, the man responsible for turning the USC baseball program into a perennial Pac-10 bottom dweller is no longer on the school's payroll.  

Since Mike Gillespie, who led the Trojans to a College World Series title in 1998, was forced to retire by then-athletic director Mike Garrett following the 2006 season, Kreuter has gone on to compile a 111-117 record as manager at USC - a far cry from the days when the Trojans had arguably the best program in the country under legendary coach Rod Dedeaux.

And to make matters even worse for Kreuter, his predecessor, Gillespie, has led the Anteaters to three consecutive NCAA regionals and even one super regional in just three years as the manager at UC Irvine.

But in all likelihood, it was the 2010 season that proved to be most damaging to Kreuter's coaching career. Despite featuring a competent collection of pitchers and one of the top power hitters nationally in sophomore first baseman Ricky Oropesa, the Trojans finished last in the Pac-10, compiling a mark of 7-20 in conference play. In short, the team that had one of the fielding percentages in the country and seemed incompetent at fielding the most routine double plays, wasn't very good. In fact, they were awful.

Luckily, the Trojans now have an athletic director, who isn't simply going to accept 10th place finishes.

"I said one one of my goals was to return the USC baseball program to national prominence," noted Haden. "No reason we shouldn't be there."    

I couldn't agree more.

In the meanwhile, volunteer assistant Frank Cruz, who served as the head coach at Loyola Marymount for 12 seasons before being let go in 2008, will serve as interim manager.

Fight On!

UPDATE below the fold...

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It's no secret that we've been a little critical of the USC baseball program in recent months, particularly manager Chad Kreuter who has orchestrated some of the worst single season performances in school history. Well, over the weekend, USC traveled to Pullman, Washington, only to be swept by No. 24 Washington State by a combined score of 46-13. Yes, you read that correctly. On Friday, the Cougars posted 20 runs, and a day later, that looked just as strong by putting 18 runs on the board. Remarkably, Sunday was the Trojans' most competitive outing, as they lost by a mere 6 runs. Hey, there's the progress we've all been looking for. Jeff Nusser from CougCenter.com, SB Nation's Washington State blog, points out the carnage from the weekend series: 

USC isn't a great team, but nobody has done to the Trojans what we did this weekend in outscoring them 46-13. (Only UCLA, which outscored them 30-10, even came close.) 

Essentially, Kreuter and company's dismal performance against the Cougars was a microcosm of the failures that have been pervasive ever since the former Dodgers catcher took over for his father-in-law Mike Gillespie four years ago. And this season has arguably been one of the worst in school history. Per Pedro Moura of ESPNLosAngeles.com: 

After losing 20-7 on Friday and 18-4 on Saturday, USC (25-31, 5-19 in the Pac-10) allowed more runs in the weekend series than it had in any other three-game series in the history of the program. 

The Trojans are also now locked into the last spot in the conference standings - at 5-19, with a conference winning percentage of .208, USC is a full five games behind ninth-place Oregon State. And, barring a three-game sweep of the Washington Huskies next weekend, coach Chad Kreuter's team will also be the only conference squad to register an under-.500 record on the season. 

USC now needs to win each of its last four games in order to avoid the worst regular season of Kreuter's four-year tenure, with a mid-week game with Big West power UC Irvine looming Tuesday before the Washington series.    

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