Trev Alberts corrects the record after Jim Schlossnagle tries to blame him for exit

Trev Alberts adds context, corrects half-truths from Jim Schlossnagle Star-Telegram interview

The spin attempts from the Longhorn side of things have been fast and furious since Jim Schlossnagle's departure landed them such a spectacular PR black eye—and they haven't always been the neatest, either. Clearly grasping at anything to salvage his image in the media, they enlisted the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in order to get out their favored telling of events.

It was always obvious what this was to anyone with half a brain—the article consisted of fewer than ten questions, zero pushback, and a notable absence of any attempt to contact the other parties he names in the article: namely, Alberts. Schloss alleges that the Aggie AD told him out of the blue that "it's OK to move on," and that he was never contacted about getting a new contract, which spurred his decision to move.

With how uniformly and obediently this became the main talking point of every single Longhorn fan engaging in baseball discussions (or simply showing up on Aggie pages uninvited), you'd think they had some sort of centralized briefing. I guess this is yet another lesson in what happens when uncritically imbibing your favored narratives!

In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Trev Alberts gives a little more context to what we now know is the half-truth that Schlossnagle put out in his interview. Give it a read by clicking on the link above or in the tweet below. Below are some relevant points.

First, Alberts details how he went to great lengths to try and meet with Schlossnagle, who cancelled meeting after meeting—even no-showing at a meeting about planned stadium renovations. A lack of movement towards these renovations, of course, were a piece of why Schlossnagle purported he left A&M—I guess they weren't all that important to him after all, if he decided the meeting wasn't worth showing up to!

Why was Alberts trying so hard to get a meeting with Schloss? Apparently, he had been informed by "several donors" that the Aggie baseball coach was set on leaving College Station. Interesting that this was apparently prior to the conversation that Schlossnagle says "was the moment that I began to think that maybe this wasn't going to work out"!

This leaves two options: either 1) the A&M donors are engaging in a dark and terrible magic that is allowing them to scry into the future intentions of their coaches—ones that have not yet even been birthed in their conscious minds—or 2) Schlossnagle isn't being honest about his timeline. Given some of the staffing decisions made by Jimbo Fisher before the 2023 season, I find option 1 to be unlikely.

This conversation only occurred due to the great pains that Alberts took to finally track Schloss down after multiple cancelled meetings. The Aggie AD literally had to go sit in an assistant coach's office until he finally saw the evasive baseball head man—this is when the referenced conversation took place. Below is a quote from Alberts that shows how this conversation went.

'"I said, "Are you frustrated? Is there anything I can do?" And at the end of the conversation I said, "Jim, if you're not happy here and you want to leave, that's OK. But please don't hurt our program and don't hurt our kids." That's what I said. And he said, "I will never do that, Trev."'"

This adds a whole new flavor to things. Given the context of repeated avoidance of these meetings, the concerns of the donors that a deal was done for Schloss to go to Texas, and Alberts genuine request to know if everything was fine and whether there was anything he could do, his quote is entirely justified. He's speaking to a man who clearly wants out—and he gives him one request: don't hurt our program and don't hurt our kids.

Well, I don't know Jim Schlossnagle's mind. But it's hard to see, despite his own assurances in response to Alberts, how he tried to honor that request even in the slightest.