Sophomore right hander Tyler Ferguson on the hill for the Dores vs. Texas senior right hander Nathan Thornhill. Tyler is 8-3 with a 2.51 ERA, with 28 walks and 61 K’s in 75 innings pitched. He’s pitched in 15 games, starting 14. In his last four contests, Tyler pitched 3.2 innings against Missouri giving up one run on two hits with three walks and five K’s. He pitched five against Florida with no runs, two hits, three walks and three K’s. Against South Carolina, Tyler went 5, gave up one run, six hits with 1 K and three walks. Against Stanford in relief in an 11-6 victory in the first game of the Super Regional, Tyler went 2.2, gave up 0 runs on two hits with three walks and five K’s. Tyler has excellent stuff; he brings it at 95 with his fastball and has a pretty good curve and change up. When he gets into trouble, it’s due to losing his control sometimes. If he can keep it over the plate and let his defense–which has been stellar lately– make plays, we’ll be in good shape if we can hit some too.
Thornhill is 8-3 with a 1.63 ERA. He’s started 15 games for the Longhorns, and has 36 walks and 63 K’s in 105 innings. He’s 2-2 in his last four starts. Against Houston in the Super Regional, he went seven, gave up two hits, two runs, one earned, with one walk and three K’s. Houston was a pretty good team. They beat Louisville in the American Athletic Conference Championship game. Against UC Irivine in the first game of the CWS last Saturday, he took the loss going six, giving up two hits, two runs, one earned, with one walk and four K’s. Texas beat Irvine, 1-0, Wednesday night to advance to today after defeating Louisville on Monday night, 4-1. Thornhill brings it in the low to mid 90’s and is a pretty crafty with his slower stuff. He’s a veteran, so we will be tested.
Their fielding at a .975 clip this season. They have committed 63 errors. Their leading hitter is Madison Carter @ .336, but he’s only started 31 games. Not sure if he’s hurt or been hurt. Mark Payton is hitting .323 with two homers and 38 RBIs. C.J. Hinojosa is hitting .298 with two long ones and 34 RBIs. They are hitting .264 as a team with 22 homers, but they do have 95 doubles. They have struck out 346 times. Texas is 45-20.
Our leading hitters are Dansby Swanson and Bryan Reynolds who are both hitting .341. Vinnie Conde is hitting .297 and Xavier Turner is hitting .281. John Norwood is also @ .281, Rhett Wiseman, who’s really come on lately, is hitting .279, and Zander Wiel is hitting .277. We’re hitting .283 as a team with 21 homers and 141 doubles. We were third in the country in doubles last I checked. We have struck out 426 times and walked 249 times in 67 games. We are now 48-19. We are fielding at a .975 clip and have committed 63 errors, same as Texas. Our defense has been tremendous with Zander, Dansby, Vinnie and X playing awesome in the infield from first to third. And our outfield has been stellar. Norwood in center, Wiseman in right and Reynolds in left have made every play and made some gems out there; Reynolds particularly. This team has hit its stride in every aspect of the game.
I like Corbs going with Ferguson. If Tyler can get it done today, maybe with some help from the bullpen, and of course the bats and defense, we will be playing Monday night for the championship in the best two out of three games series. We will play the winner of Virginia-Ole Miss. If we don’t win today, we will play Texas tomorrow in a must win situation. This team has been incredible in the postseason. So proud of’ ’em. We can get it done today. Just need to play Vanderbilt baseball. Game at 3 PM ET/2 PM CT on ESPNU.
Excellent news on the football recruiting front. Just got a commitment yesterday from Tight end/H back Sam Dobbs out of Fairburn, Georgia. Sam is 6’4″, 219 and is rated an 87 composite three-star by 247 Sports. Rivals doesn’t rate him as highly as he is a two-star by them, but I trust 247 more on this one and I trust my own eyes. I watched three minutes of film on Sam on the Hudl website, which is an excellent site for watching recruits’ highlights, and loved what I saw out of Sam. He’s an excellent receiver, who catches everything on film, runs well after the catch, is physical and a very good blocker. That would be interesting to put Sam in an Hback position much like Dallas Clark was for the Indy Colts with Peyton. Sam will be a very good player for us. The last clip I saw, he caught a 15 yard pass over the middle, broke a tackle, and ran 30 more yards into the end zone. Really like this addition to our class.
Thinking some on next year. I really like the group we have coming back. Our secondary lost everybody, but honestly, we can be better in the secondary this year. Torren McGaster, Paris Head, Tre Bell and Darrius Sims are excellent football players at corner and safety. Andrew Williamson is a very good safety and Jahmel McIntosh can fill in well at safety. We have a ton of talent back there. And there is history with this group. Our whole secondary was hurt in the second half against Tennessee in Knoxville last year and these guys came in and shut the Vols passing attack down. The Vols didn’t have a prolific passing game, but I was highly impressed with how the guys played. Feel very good about that group. Linebacker and the d line are in good shape. Derek and Coach Kotulski are going to have a good nucleus to work with, and I can’t wait to see what they do with guys like Caleb Azubike, who is a superstar in the making at d end, and Kyle Woestmann and Stephen Weatherly at d ends. Up the middle with Vince Taylor, Adam Butler and Jay Woods we should be strong and tough, and Darreon Herring will lead a talented, physical, playmaking linebacker group. The offensive line should be stellar and deep led by Andrew Jelks at tackle, and Joe Townshend at center. Really like this group. Physical and dominating potentially. We’ll have young, but talented wide receivers led by four-star Jordan Cunningham (2013), who caught 16 passes for us last year, and has incredible upside. Other guys like Latevius Rayford, Gerald Perry, C.J. Duncan and DeAndre Woods are game changers along with some size. Woods and Cunningham are tall and strong and Rayford, Perry and Duncan are game breakers. Tight end should be terrific. Derek loves tight ends from his Stanford experience and we have major talent at that position. Like what Brian Kimbrow, Jerron Seymour and Ralph Webb can do at running back, and incoming freshman Dallas Rivers was a highly rated three-star by Rivals and 247 and a four-star by ESPN. Dallas could help immediately and he has good size at 6’1″, 210. Quarterback should have excellent competition in the summer between Patton Robinette, Johnny McCrary and LSU transfer Stephen Rivers. The two freshmen will most likely redshirt. Whomever emerges from those three should be ready to go. And we’ll have highly capable backups. The area I am most concerned about is the kicking game. We really need to focus on that this summer, both placekicking and punting. That should be a major point of emphasis. Need to get better there in August. But the return games should be strong. Love Sims returning kickoffs. He can take it to the house any time, and Kimbrow, if he’s the guy, could be explosive returning punts.
Temple on Thursday, August 28th, @ home @ 9:15 PM ET/8:15 PM CT on the new SEC Network. If you have Charter or DirecTV, I would highly recommend going to the SECsports.com website and then going to their SEC Network tab at the top of the page and tweeting or calling those two providers, demanding that they get the SEC Network. It’s critical. We play Ole Miss the following Saturday, Sept. 6th, @ 4:30 PM ET/3:30 PM CT on ESPN in a huge game at LP Field in Nashville. Should be an electric atmosphere.
Hopefully we can talk about a W tomorrow. If we play like we have been playing, we will. Have a great weekend and I’ll be in touch.