Jeremiah Donati discusses South Carolina baseball: 'I feel much better about next year'

Jeremiah Donati has been to the College World Series six times, five during his time at TCU. By nature, he’s a competitive person and wants to go back to Omaha, now as South Carolina’s athletics director, as soon as possible.

While he wants the same thing as the fans, he’s also a realist. He, like everyone else, knows the Gamecocks have their work cut out for them after finishing with a 28-29 record this season.

“We’ve got to be honest about where we are. We were picked to finish 14th in the SEC; we finished 15th,” Donati said on 107.5 The Game on Thursday. “If you look at the last eight years, we’ve struggled to be the upper echelon of the league. You’ve had three coaches since we had our success in Omaha. And so all I can say is, we’ve got work to do.”

It got to a point where first-year head coach Paul Mainieri was regularly being asked about his job security going into next season. This wasn’t Donati’s hire, as his predecessor, Ray Tanner, hired Mainieri last June and brought the then-66-year-old coach out of retirement.

Despite the fans’ outpouring of pleas for Donati to make a change, he opted against this and will give Mainieri the time he needs to turn the program around.

“When you hire a coach, you’re making an investment in him or her. You’ve got to give them a shot to be successful,” Donati said. “What message are you sending to people if you give them no runway? … We’ve got to let Paul do his thing, and we’ve got to be a little patient.”

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Instead, Donati has given Mainieri more resources this offseason. He mentioned a larger investment from an NIL and revenue share standpoint. It comes at a pivotal time in which Mainieri is constructing the roster the way he sees fit for success.

Since the transfer portal opened on June 2, South Carolina has built one of the top portal classes in college baseball. It ranks second and features six of the top 250 committed players, according to 64Analytics.

“I really like the way it’s going,” Donati said. “We’re already off to a fast start in the transfer portal. We’ve added some really good pieces. So, more work to do. But I like their attitude going into the offseason. I feel much better about next year.”

More NIL is only one piece to the larger puzzle of the potential turnaround next season. It’s actually just the starting point. Donati said he thinks getting the players to Columbia for the summer and starting the strength and conditioning program earlier “would be huge.” It’s something he and Mainieri are both big proponents of doing.

“That was one noticeable, glaring impact,” Donati added, “I think that Coach Mainieri found when he got here, was just since we had not been involved in those, getting the new players here early, getting them involved in those programs would benefit us. And so we made that decision, an investment to do that.”

Only time will tell what difference these enhancements and changes make next season. Those answers will come once the new-look team takes the field for Mainieri’s second season at the helm. Donati, who understands the fanbase’s frustrations, knows how important it will be to see South Carolina have better results in 2026.

“Even despite our fans being very vocal about their displeasure about the results, which in candidly, I’d be upset if they weren’t upset,” Donati said. “That tells me they care. That tells me they want to get back to a place that we feel really proud about. I know we can get there. So it just takes a little time.”

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