2025 Mountain West Regular Season Champion
2025 Mountain West Coach of the Year
Jake McKinley, fresh off of guiding Nevada to the 2025 Mountain West regular season title and being named Mountain West Coach of the Year, begins his fourth season at the Nevada helm in 2026.
The 2025 campaign represented yet another milestone in McKinley's strategic plan for the program. After going 16-14 in Mountain West play and missing the Mountain West Championship on a tiebreaker in 2024, McKinley's Wolf Pack went 19-11 in conference play in 2025 to win the outright conference title. Highlights from the campaign featured third baseman Sean Yamaguchi being named Mountain West Freshman of the Year as well as to Freshman All-America Second Teams by the NCBWA and Perfect Game, catcher Jake Harvey being named to the Buster Posey Award Watch List and the All-Mountain West First Team, and a total of five players earning All-Mountain West recognition.
Over McKinley's first two seasons at the Wolf Pack helm (with the 2025 draft still to come), four players have been selected in the Major League Baseball Draft, including 2023 third-round pick Kade Morris (New York Mets) and 2024 ninth-round selection Jason Doktorczyk (Minnesota Twins). Additionally, five Nevada players have taken the next step in their playing careers under McKinley, heading into minor-league baseball in pursuit of making "The Show."
McKinley guided the Wolf Pack to a tie for third place in the Mountain West standings in 2024, going 16-14. Four Wolf Pack players earned All-Mountain West recognition, led by Doktorczyk's selection to the First Team. Michael Ball, Taylor Holder, and Ethan O'Neal earned second-team honors, making it a total of six Wolf Pack players to earn spots on the All-Mountain West teams over McKinley's first two seasons.
McKinley was named Nevada's skipper in July 2022, having previously served as the Brewers’ Vice President of Player Development since 2021, having previously served as the organization’s Director of Player Development Initiatives (2019-21) and minor league pitching coordinator (2018-19). He oversaw player development strategies throughout the entire organization, as well as oversight of all minor-league coordinators. The Brewers made the playoffs in each of McKinley’s seasons with the club, capturing the National League Central Division pennant in 2018 and 2021, and earning wild card berths from 2019-20.
Prior to joining the Brewers’ organization, McKinley spent 13 years in the collegiate ranks, including five seasons as a head coach (2014-17 at Menlo College; 2018 at William Jessup). At Menlo College, McKinley won 131 games over his four seasons at the helm, becoming the program’s all-time winningest head coach. The following season, he inherited a William Jessup team that had won just 10 games the previous year, and guided it to a 41-17 campaign, marking, at the time, the largest single-season turnaround in college baseball history.
Student-athletes during McKinley’s tenure at Menlo College received honors in multiple categories, among them 2017 GSAC Player of the Year (Jordan Getzelman) and Pitcher of the Year (Jason Alexander). Other accolades include 12 All-Conference honorees, six NAIA All-Americans, four NAIA Academic All-Americans, six Scholar-Athletes, and two Capital One Academic All-District selections.
Four of his Menlo players were selected in the Major League Baseball Draft and McKinley was recognized as MLB Scouts Northern California College Coach of the Year in 2016. Of those four draftees, two were selected in the Top 10 rounds, most notably Lucas Erceg who was selected 46th overall by the Brewers. One player from his 2018 William Jessup team was selected in the draft, while another signed with the Brewers as a free agent.
In four years as a head coach, McKinley saw 13 former players go on to play professional baseball after being drafted or signing as a free agent.
Prior to Menlo College, McKinley spent four years (2010-13) as an assistant coach at Sacramento State, serving as the Director of Baseball Operations, a volunteer assistant coach and recruiting coordinator, helping the Hornets to a 67-55 record over his final two seasons.
McKinley started his coaching career after graduating from Bethany University (Santa Cruz, Calif.) as an assistant for the Bruins. One year later, he left his alma mater and headed to Campbellsville University (Ky.) to take on an assistant coach position from 2007-09. At Campbellsville, he played a major role in leading the team to a 39-12 record and a trip to the 2009 NAIA World Series. McKinley returned home in 2009 for two years at West Valley College, where he served as pitching coach.
McKinley graduated from Bethany College in 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts in speech communications and earned a Master’s of Arts in Social Science from Campbellsville in 2008.
As a Bethany player, he was a standout pitcher and first baseman, setting multiple records over his career, including most strikeouts in a career, most strikeouts in a single season, lowest single season ERA, and most innings pitched in both a season and career.
