With Chad Holbrook’s resignation, it leaves a vacancy Tanner needs to fill, and he must recruit a coach to leave his current school and come to South Carolina.

Ray Tanner spent 16 years in a dugout recruiting high school and junior college baseball players to come play at South Carolina. Now, in his fifth year as athletic director, he’s recruiting someone to take over in the dugout he coached from.

But how hard of a recruiting job will it be?

“What I think is a great opportunity. It has great tradition; it has great history,” Tanner said. “We have a wonderful fan base, we have great opportunities to be successful and that has been realized and hopefully it will be, certainly, going forward.”

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South Carolina is arguably one of the top jobs in college baseball. As of 2016, only 11 teams have been to the College World Series more time than the Gamecocks, and LSU is the only SEC team with more appearances.

The Gamecocks won two national titles, back-to-back in 2010 and 2011, and are one of just four SEC programs to win a title and one of just two to have multiple championships. LSU is the other program.

The baseball program makes the sixth-most money of any team in the conference, according to an article published by the Advocate.

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It’s a program with top-tier facilities and recruited top talent for years, with both Tanner and Holbrook’s staffs pulling in top in-state talent. PerfectGame.com ranks the incoming 2017 class No. 10 in the country.

It’s also a program whose athletic department and fan base yearns to be in the postseason and wants to see ultimate levels of success from its baseball team. Tanner said he embraces that, and wants the new coach to do the same thing.

“I embrace that. Our fan base is tremendous. We got a beautiful place to play. I coached for a long time,” Tanner said. “I don’t think expectations are always met, but I don’t think you’re a failure if you don’t meet fans' expectations. We strive to be in the postseason with all of our sports.”

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South Carolina will have a new coach roaming its dugout for the first time since the 2013 season, and he’ll inherit a team with a wealth of talent and a slew of incoming talent.

He will get to recruit a talent-heavy South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida high school baseball scene to come to one of the top facilities in the SEC.

He’ll coach one of the historically best and tradition-rich programs in the country with the expectation of reaching the postseason and bringing the Gamecocks back to the College World Series, a place they haven’t been since 2012.

“We have a lot of things to be excited about in our baseball program,” Tanner said. “I think we'll have some opportunities. It’s an outstanding program.”