Jim Schlossnagle apologizes for his viral exchange with Texas A&M reporter

New Texas coach Jim Schlossnagle burned plenty of bridges on the way out the door at Texas A&M this week, and he is apologizing for at least one of them.

Schlossnagle went viral on Monday for his fiery response to a question about leaving Texas A&M to take the Texas baseball coach position. After Texas A&M was eliminated from the College World Series, Schlossnagle railed against the “unfair” and “selfish” question about possibly leaving for Texas. Those comments looked very bad when, one day later, Schlossnagle accepted the Texas job.

When being introduced as the new Longhorns coach on Wednesday, Schlossnagle explained his response, and said he wanted to apologize to the reporter, Richard Zane of TexAgs.com, who had asked the question.

“He asked a question that was an obvious question,” Schlossnagle said, via Dave Wilson of ESPN. “I wish I could have answered that better. But in the moment, all 30 minutes after the last pitch, all I could think about was our players. And I really wasn’t in the mood to talk about myself for the future.”

Did Schlossnagle know he was going to seriously consider the Texas job when he was asked the question? Only he knows for sure, but it certainly looks bad. Admittedly, his mind may have been swayed by the huge contract he got, but Aggie fans will not be forgiving of that, either.

Schlossnagle, 53, was a longtime coach at TCU prior to joining Texas A&M for the 2022 season. He has taken teams to seven College World Series.