Hobbs named D1Baseball Assistant Coach of the Year

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (arkansasrazorbacks.com) – Arkansas pitching coach Matt Hobbs has been named the D1Baseball Assistant Coach of the Year.

Hobbs, who completed his sixth season as pitching coach in 2024, guided the Razorback pitchers to a historic and record-breaking campaign this past year. Arkansas ranked fifth in the nation with a 3.87 ERA and a 3.11 strikeout-to-walk ratio while leading the country with 12.1 strikeouts per nine innings, powered by a school-record 706 strikeouts.

Since joining Arkansas as an assistant coach prior to the 2019 campaign, Hobbs has helped develop nine All-Americans, nine All-SEC honorees, including two conference pitchers of the year, and 23 MLB draft picks, including four in this year’s draft. Under Hobbs, Kevin Kopps emerged as the best player in the country in 2021, winning both the Golden Spikes Award and Dick Howser Trophy, and Hagen Smith developed into the unanimous national pitcher of the year in 2024.

Under Hobbs’ guidance, Smith solidified his status as one of the greatest pitchers in Razorback history, concluding his career as the program’s all-time strikeout king and single-season strikeout leader, and departing as the highest-drafted pitcher in school history when he was selected fifth overall by the Chicago White Sox in the 2024 MLB Draft.

Smith, crowned the 2024 National Pitcher of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association/Rawlings, College Baseball Foundation and Perfect Game, earned first-team All-America selections from all six of the major baseball award publications, including ABCA/Rawlings, Baseball America, College Baseball Foundation, D1Baseball, National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and Perfect Game, this past season. Under Hobbs’ tutelage, Smith became the first Hog to achieve unanimous first-team All-America status since Kopps accomplished the feat during his historic 2021 season.

The Razorback left-hander became the sixth two-time All-American in school history, joining program greats Kevin McReynolds (1980-81), Jeff King (1985-86), Phillip Stidham (1990-91), David Walling (1998-99) and Nick Schmidt (2006-07). Smith became just the fourth Arkansas pitcher in history to earn All-America honors in consecutive seasons.

With Hobbs’ help, Smith was unquestionably the best pitcher in college baseball in 2024, completing the campaign with a 9-2 record, 2.04 ERA and 161 strikeouts in 84.0 innings over 16 starts. Named the SEC Pitcher of the Year after going 7-0 with a 1.35 ERA and 110 strikeouts in 60.0 innings over 10 conference starts on the mound, Smith led the country with an NCAA-record 17.25 strikeouts per nine innings on the season and finished ranked first nationally in hits allowed per nine innings (4.4), second in strikeouts (161), fourth in ERA (2.04) and seventh in WHIP (0.89).

The Bullard, Texas, native posted a team-leading 11 quality starts and logged a program-record 11 double-digit strikeout games on the year, becoming the program’s all-time career strikeout king and single-season strikeout leader during his historic 2024 campaign. Smith, who raised his career strikeout total to 360, overtook Schmidt (345) for sole possession of Arkansas’ career strikeout mark in addition to surpassing Walling’s single-season strikeout record of 155 set in 1999 to move atop the program’s single-season strikeout leaderboard (161).

Since Hobbs joined the Razorback coaching staff, Arkansas has made two trips to the College World Series (2019, 2022), clinched a pair of overall SEC championships (2021, 2023) and captured four SEC Western Division titles (2019, 2021, 2023, 2024). Additionally, the Hogs won Collegiate Baseball’s national recruiting championship for the first time in program history in 2023 as Arkansas’ star-studded recruiting class was named the nation’s best by the publication.

Arkansas’ All-American pitchers under Matt Hobbs (9): Isaiah Campbell, Matt Cronin, Colin Fisher (Freshman), Gabe Gaeckle (Freshman), Kevin Kopps, Connor Noland (Freshman), Hagen Smith, Brady Tygart, Patrick Wicklander.

Arkansas’ All-SEC pitchers under Matt Hobbs (9): Matt Cronin, Gabe Gaeckle, Kevin Kopps (Pitcher of the Year), Connor Noland, Peyton Pallette, Hagen Smith (Pitcher of the Year), Brady Tygart, Patrick Wicklander, Gage Wood.

Arkansas’ MLB draftees under Matt Hobbs (23): Mark Adamiak, Cody Adcock, Isaiah Campbell, Ryan Costeiu, Matt Cronin, Jake Faherty, Hunter Hollan, Kevin Kopps, Jacob Kostyshock, Lael Lockhart, Mason Molina, Caden Monke, Connor Noland, Peyton Pallette, Zack Plunkett, Cody Scroggins, Hagen Smith, Evan Taylor, Elijah Trest, Brady Tygart, Zebulon Vermillion, Patrick Wicklander, Jaxon Wiggins.