Five things to know about new Penn State baseball coach Mike Gambino

Penn State athletics announced a new leader of the baseball program Monday morning with the hire of Boston College head coach Mike Gambino. Gambino won 291 games in 13 seasons with the Eagles, with his most successful coming this past season.

The new head coach takes over for Rob Cooper, who spent 10 years at Penn State, compiling 195 wins over that time before resigning following the 2023 season.

Here are five things to know about the hire.

National success

Gambino has had success at the national level in his time at Boston College, making the NCAA Regionals twice — once in 2016 when the team advanced to the Super Regional and once again this past season. Those two appearances account for two of the program’s three NCAA appearances in the last 50 years. By contrast, Penn State hasn’t made an appearance since 2000 when the team advanced to the Super Regional.

The new head coach will try to replicate the success he had on that level and get the Nittany Lions back on the national stage.

Talent development

Part of the reason for his teams’ success is the ability to develop the talent he’s gotten at Boston College. Gambino had 33 players taken in his first 12 years at the helm, including three players who have played in major league games this season — Jake Alu for the Washington Nationals, Emmet Sheehan for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Michael King for the New York Yankees.

One of those 33 players, Sal Frelick was the ACC defensive player of the year in 2021 and was then selected by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2021 MLB Draft. Frelick is the No. 19 prospect in all of baseball according to MLB.com and the No. 41 prospect according to The Athletic’s Keith Law. He’s ranked as the Brewers’ No. 2 overall prospect by both publications. Gambino also helped develop Travis Honeyman, who MLB.com has as the No. 61 prospect in the upcoming 2023 MLB Draft.

In it for the long haul

Gambino joins Penn State after a long career at Boston College. He played for the Eagles from 1997-2000 before rejoining the program from 2003-2005 as an assistant coach and again as the head coach for the last 13 seasons. In between those tenures as a coach at Boston College he was an assistant at Virginia Tech for four seasons.

His recent decade-plus stay as the leader of the Boston College program could point to a long-term fit for Penn State that could help get the Nittany Lions out of the cellar of the Big Ten and into a larger role on the national baseball scene.

Relationship with Kraft

Of course, it helps Gambino’s cause that his athletic director for three years at Boston College is the current leader of the Penn State athletic department. He and Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft overlapped from 2020-2022 at the ACC school.

“We worked with Mike at Boston College and know how he grows a program to find success on a national stage,” Kraft said in a release from Penn State. “Mike guided BC to the best season in program history this past season, which is impressive in a conference with historical baseball success like the ACC.”

Gambino should have a better knowledge of what he’s getting at Penn State thanks to his prior relationship and is more likely to be aligned with Kraft in how he wants to achieve success for the program because of that.

Competition change

One of the most stark changes for the new coach will be the level of competition he’ll face in the Big Ten. His new conference only sent three schools to the postseason this season while he led one of eight to make it in the ACC this year. That’s a stark contrast and an indicator that he should be able to find more success than he previously had.

For context, every ACC school except for Pittsburgh has made the NCAA Division I baseball tournament in the last three years, and eight schools made it this season alone. Only five Big Ten schools have made it that far in the last three seasons, with Maryland being the only program to make it all three years.

Gambino will have more room in the Big Ten to consistently get the Nittany Lions where they want to go, sheerly because the level of competition will be that much lower than he’s seen in the past.