By Will Vandervort.

Dan Radakovich said it was time to inject some new momentum into Clemson’s baseball program so the Tigers’ athletic director decided on Thursday he was not going to retain Jack Leggett as head coach.

Leggett, who still had one more year remaining on his contract beginning in July, leaves Clemson as a Hall of Fame coach who took the program to 21 NCAA Tournaments in 22 years, including nine advancements to the Super Regional rounds and six trips to Omaha for the College World Series.

“This decision was not an easy one. There is no denying the success of our program in the past. It has placed Clemson baseball in position to compete for championships. So after my evaluations, it came down to this, I think we can do better,” Radakovich said.

Radakovich says he came to this decision after careful evaluation and review of the season and the projection of the baseball program the last few years.

“It was my decision to bring a fresh approach to our program,” he said.

There is no question Clemson’s program has derailed since going to Omaha for a sixth time in 2010. Since then, the Tigers have failed to get past the regional round of the NCAA Tournament in each of the last five years and have lost 10 of their last 15 tournament games.

Clemson has lost five straight NCAA Tournament games after losing to Arizona State and Pepperdine in last week’s regional round of the tournament. The Tigers finished 32-29 in 2015, after going 36-25 in 2014.

The Tigers went 35-28 in 2012, but won 40 and 43 games in 2013 and 2011.

“We need to inject some new momentum and create optimism around our baseball program,” Radakovich said. “I’m confident in our search for a new head coach we will find someone who will bring that excitement to our fans and our student athletes.”

Leggett and his supporters might argue he could have done that, too. Was everything that occurred in the last four years all Leggett’s fault?

Clemson is currently upgrading the players’ facility, which Leggett has been asking for nearly a decade for, with a new locker room, showers and clubhouse. The facility, which was funded mostly by his former players, will also house a Clemson baseball museum as well as coaches’ offices and a state-of-the-art team meeting room.

The $6 million project is scheduled to be completed this fall.

Clemson’s administration has also worked around the Academic Common Market issues that have hurt the program when it comes to recruiting out-of-state players.

Seventeen players from the Tigers’ 35-man roster this past season were out-of-state players. Baseball can use just 11.7 scholarships which are to be spread out among 27-active players on the roster. Of the 27 athletes, they are to receive a minimum of 25 percent scholarship reward.

The 27- and 25-rules, as they are known, went into effect in 2010 and 2011. The last time Clemson won a regional was in 2010 and the last time it hosted a regional was in 2011.

Leggett was so confident he was the man that could turn the program around, he even offered up a solution that would allow him to stay on for another two or three years so he could recruit to these new advantages and get the program back where he once had it.

Already using the ACM and the new facility, Leggett and recruiting coordinator Bradley LeCroy had the No. 11 recruiting class in the country in position to come in this fall and were already off to a good start for the 2016 class.

When Leggett was informed, during a conversation he and Radakovich had earlier this week, he had to fire his entire coaching staff in order to come back, he would not budge. So Radakovich went in the other direction.

“When kind of looking at things, and kind of staying the same course, that is the head coaches’ prerogative. I made the decision at that point in time to change direction,” Radakovich said.

“I’m not going to go into a lot of those details,” he later would say. “That’s part of a personnel evaluation we do each and every year. I don’t think that is fair to put that out into the general public.”

Some might say it is not fair to fire a Hall of Fame Coach, either. But Radakovich thinks Clemson can do better. In three or four years we will know the answer.