Michael Earley addresses recent Texas A&M struggles: 'We're not gonna quit'

In his first season as the head coach of the Texas A&M Aggies, Michael Earley has faced plenty of adversity. Even with another regular season remaining, those struggles seem to have culminated in last weekend’s sweep at the hands of last-place Missouri.

As Texas A&M looks to put the sweep behind them, Earley admitted that he and the team were discouraged. At the same time, the Aggies aren’t going to quit just yet.

“For sure,” Michael Earley said. “I mean, yeah. I don’t even know what the word is, but it’s more than that. So, I feel terrible for these guys, man. They put everything into this. Yeah, it is tough. It’s tough, and I feel awful for them. But we are going to rebound, we are going to regroup, and we are going to finish this thing strong, however it may be. But we are not going to quit.”

Earley landed the Texas A&M job after previously being the team’s hitting coach. He was going to leave with previous head coach, Jim Schlossnagle, for the Texas Longhorns, but eventually chose to stay when the opportunity to become the head coach opened up.

Expectations were high coming into the season for Texas A&M. After they were the runner-up in last season’s College World Series and making it to Omaha in two of the previous three seasons, the hope was that continuity was just what the Aggies needed and they were even ranked first in the country in the preseason poll.

Injuries have become a major storyline for Texas A&M this season. Third baseman Gavin Grahovac, reliever Josh Stewart, and starting pitcher Shane Sdao all were lost to season-ending injuries. Others have come and gone as they’ve battled various ailments. That hasn’t made things easy, but they’re also not a unique issue to Texas A&M, and Michael Earley knows that his team still needs to play better.

The Aggies are coming out of the Missouri series 27-23 overall and 10-17 in SEC play. That’s good for 14th in the current conference standings. The sweep against Missouri represented the Tigers’ only three wins of the year in conference play. Still, Earley wants his team to keep battling to the end of the season.

Texas A&M has one regular season series left. That’s going to be on the road against Georgia, which has proven to be one of the best teams in the country this season. After that, they’ll have a chance to make some noise in the SEC Baseball Tournament, which all 16 schools are going to be playing in. However, at this point, a bye game in the tournament is out of reach.