“You get to this time of year and we’ve seen it whether it be at Lindsey Nelson Stadium, or this last weekend — fortunately I’ve coached long enough, Frank has too. You get to this time of year. No one is not going to be pouring their heart and soul out on to the field. You can come up with whatever set of circumstances you want. For coaches, players, fanbases. Everyone is going to give it their best go. It is a baseball game, so there’s a lot of crazy things that can happen. Really, whatever competitive edge you’re looking for, it’s got to be based off of what your team has become throughout the year and there were teams last year that served as good examples for us now of, maybe the quickest path or the best path from point A to point B isn’t a straight line. And for us, there’s no way it’s been a straight line. I think whether we’re playing in Hoover, Clemson, at home, we finished the year in South Carolina. Our zig-zag path, ups and downs, rollercoaster, whatever it’s been throughout this year — it’s who we are, so stay true to who we are. And who are is a group of guys who are pretty capable when we’re playing our best or close to it. Throwing out the word best is ironic because I don’t think we’ve necessarily found that yet, especially over the course of a complete weekend.”
On Southern Miss starter Tanner Hall
“He takes advantage of hitters who are overzealous. Really preys on hitters who are overzealous. We go back to the point of everyone wants to give it their best, well it’s important to define what that is. Because try-hard isn’t necessarily your best and he doesn’t have a lot of try-hard in him, but if you’ve got a hitter in the box who is a little over-zealous, he takes advantage of them. And then he’s looking for you to beat the ball into the ground. His stuff matches up with that approach and it’s worked well for him to get ground balls, in particular against Samford in the regional outing he had. I know he came back and threw again on Monday, but that game in particular. It takes two to tango. He could face a hitter that’s either really talented or has the perfect approach, but he’s good enough to get guys out Mano e Mano as well. And then as we try to get our pitchers to understand, especially when they’re freshman. There’s other things besides pitching you gotta be well-rounded by getting in a rhythm on the mound, defending your position, holding on runners and he’s really well-rounded at all of those things that you could define as extra. But as a coach, you throw them all in the same hat of being a pitcher.”
On if he notices any Southern Miss weaknesses
“Coach [Scott] Berry covers those up. It’s why he is who he is. That program has been very well known in the baseball world for a while. The park tends to play a little offensive, so they’ve always had good offenses. If you watch the way they ae done things since he’s been there, there’s a well-rounded offense. It all stems from guys being competitive. You have a group of guys – and when you get to this time of the year, you can say it about anybody – there’s older guys who have experience before and they are hungry to get to whatever the next thing is in the playoffs. that’s what is going on there. The pitching staff, heck we saw one of their guys who was a part of a great pitching staff last year in [Florida pitcher Hurston Waldrep] and even though he is not a part of it there, there’s more. They’ve got a closer that’s done well for them. We haven’t really ever declared a closer, but again we can go back to that Burns example, you got a starter who is coming out of the bullpen and he’s able to give you 100 pitches. [Justin] Storm has done the same for them and [tanner] hall is leading the way for them. Pretty good club. If I wasn’t fortunate enough to be standing here talking about this weekend, which we are, you could rattle off any of the teams who are still alive and it’s going to be the case for all of them.”
Projected Pitching Matchups
Game one: RHP Andrew Lindsey (3-2, 2.40 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 64 K, 17 BB, 63.2 IP) vs. RHP Billy Oldham (8-3, 4.33 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 84 K, 23 BB, 72.2 IP)
Game two: RHP Chase Dollander (6-6, 4.50 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 111 K, 27 BB, 78 IP) vs. RHP Tanner Hall (12-3, 2.08 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 119 K, 32 BB, 108 IP)
Game three: TBD vs. TBD