Houston's Hiring of Will Davis Earns Praise from Alex Bregman Among Others

Houston Cougars baseball is set to begin a new era. Will Davis was just hired as the new head coach for the program on Tuesday, and he has a big task ahead of him to rebuild Houston into a true Big 12 baseball contender.

Davis hasn't been shy and has said his goals are to get Houston back to Omaha for the College World Series. The potential is there for Houston and a strong recruiter is a big key for the program to get back to winning ways.

Davis just spent the past 10 seasons at Lamar and turned Cardinals baseball around with two conference championships and five straight 30+ win seasons. Most importantly, Davis developed a high amount of talent that eventually made it to Major League Baseball. He coached 10 Lamar players who were ultimately drafted and has coached a total of 60 MLB Draft picks throughout his career, going back to LSU. Doing more with fewer resources at Lamar shows the potential he can have.

Will Davis is Certified By Big Names

Alex Bregman alongside Will Davis — Jun 8, 2013; Baton Rouge, LA, USA; LSU Tigers infielder Alex Bregman (30) reacts to making it third base beside Oklahoma Sooners third baseman Garrett Carey (10) and LSU Tigers third base coach Will Davis in the third inning during the Baton Rouge super regional of the 2013 NCAA baseball tournament at Alex Box Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Crystal LoGiudice-Imagn Images | Crystal LoGiudice-Imagn Images

Davis oversaw 48 LSU Tigers taken in the MLB Draft, and those included six first-round selections. Among the six, the biggest star of them all was Alex Bregman. Currently one of the best third basemen in the game, Bregman is a two-time World Series Champion and three-time All-Star. Bregman played three seasons at LSU from 2013-15 and was one of the best players in recent program history.

Davis was the third base coach at the time at LSU, among other positions and worked with Bregman. He was also the one who helped recruit Bregman to Baton Rouge, La. as the head of recruiting.

Naturally, Bregman approved of Houston's move to hire Davis as the new head coach and gave a lot of insight and praise on his experience with him.

"From the moment in the recruiting process that I met Will, we hit it off instantly as I thought we saw the game the same way. When I got to school he became someone I could lean on that was willing to work as hard as I did," Bregman said. "He was willing to do anything to help me get better and I am not surprised at all that he had that level of success at Lamar. This is a great hire by Houston and I can’t wait to see what he does at that program!”

Additionally, Chris Baldwin of PaperCity Houston had an exclusive chat with Bregman about Davis' hire, and it shows how much Davis loves baseball and winning. Bregman already reached out and congratulated Davis as well.

“Extremely prepared. Confident. He loves the game. He wants to be the best and win at the highest level. He has a good eye for winning and talent,” Bregman said to Baldwin. “I think he gets to know guys and what makes them tick. You can tell that he is fully invested in winning. And you can really understand kind of who he is from just being around him 10 minutes. From early on in just my time at LSU, we built a friendship and obviously a relationship based on hard work, competitiveness and a desire to be successful. He’s great at what he does.”

It's clear that the relationships he built with his players were strong. Besides that, Texas baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle also approved of the Davis hire. Schlossnagle spent 18 seasons as head coach of TCU before three seasons at Texas A&M and is now in his second season with the Longhorns.

“Will Davis is an elite hire for the University of Houston. Coach Davis is an incredible program builder, energetic recruiter and consistent developer of both talented players and winning teams. Cougar fans should be so very thankful that Will has chosen to lead UH at a championship level," Schlossnagle said.

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