So what is your gut feeling on this staff? I know he is 2 for 2 on local recruiting but what about his coaching philosophy?
I really like the Bolt hire (biased, I know). As a B1G school, you basically are hiring a big time assistant from a power program. Moos put his foot in his mouth saying he wanted a head coach with P5 experience, the B1G just doesn't allow for that. Bolt is a great hire in a couple areas:
1) Is familiar with the landscape of Nebraska from not only how things work around here, and how good local talent is. A coach not familiar could be more of the same in missing local recruits.
2) He is the JUCO mastermind for A&M and at Nebraska. While in Lincoln, he brought in guys like Josh Roeder (career saves leader) from the JUCO ranks due to his connections. JUCO is too important to neglect like Erstads staff did, and he will remedy that. Palensky was our best hitter and he was a JUCO guy. Bolt just brought in Povich, a first team JUCO all-american.
Things i'm a little concerned about is he was wearing out his welcome at A&M, people thought batters regressed under his guidance (sound familiar?). The other is Christy as a pitching coach, not a ton of experience there, especially compared to Silva.
All that said, Bolt is bringing some energy back to the recruiting trail and in games. Erstad knew how much effort it took to get the best recruits, and I think he was getting a bit tired of that. I also think Darin wasn't the best motivator and relied on his leaders to do that. I think we will get upgrades there.