So many good things going on with this baseball team. We’re 33-4 overall, 14-1 in the SEC, No.2 in the country in the Baseball America poll, No.3 in all the others (UNC No.1 in all polls, LSU No.2 in the others and No.3 3 in BA poll), just an incredible season we have going on. A lot of the credit goes to Corbs; he’s a phenomenal coach. But a lot of the credit also goes to the character, dedication, heart and talent of these players.
I’m going to give you an example of the Sherman tank-like heart of this baseball team. There’s a pop fly in Saturday’s game against Missouri. Conrad Gregor, our first baseman, goes charging over to try and catch it. He practically jumps into the Mizzou dugout to make the catch almost flipping over the rail, which could have injured him, possibly badly. Catcher Spence Navin grabs his feet before he flips into the Mizzou dugout. Conrad didn’t make the catch, but he gave every ounce of his ability to catch that baseball. We were in a game where we were leading comfortably, but Conrad was determined to catch that pop fly. It’s just a personal example of how hungry and focused this baseball team is. So proud of these guys. Amazing group of young men.
Conrad is possibly the most underrated player on this team. He is an excellent hitter. His batting average isn’t where it has been in previous years (.280), but it looks like his bat is coming together. His play at first base is phenomenal. If he were in the big leagues, he’d be a gold glover. Conrad plays amazing first base. He has dug so many balls thrown in the dirt this year. He’s just automatic there and that is so important to our baseball team. He’s an invaluable player. I think part of the reason Conrad has gotten off to a slower than usual start with his bat has been the weather. It’s been cold and windy most of the season and the ball is just not flying or moving as hard as it does in warmer weather. But the weather is getting good now. Conrad’s bat will come around; I guarantee that. He’s outstanding.
Connor Harrell was four-for-six on Sunday with four RBI’s with an RBI triple. He cranked two out on Friday Night. Conner now has seven homers and 50 RBIs in 37 games. Pretty awesome stuff there. I told this to a friend of mine a little while ago; two years ago we had Aaron Westlake, who could carry our team with his bat and was a big reason why we made the CWS. Connor is doing that right now. And he’s got a lot of good bats around him. Tony Kemp is hitting .401 and playing outstanding second base. The amazing thing about Tony is he had been a left fielder for a year and a half when Corbs needed him to make the switch to second base because of injuries toward the tail end of last year. Tony, being the ultimate team guy that he is, made the transition enthusiastically, and has embraced his role at second. Tony has tremendous range, he’s a clean fielder and has an accurate arm. He is a phenomenal baseball player.
Another guy who is just outstanding is Vinnie Conde. Corbs moved Vinnie over to short from third this year because of injuries. Vince played short in high school, but he kind had his struggles at short for a while this year. But I watched him this past weekend and he played outstanding. The way he and Tony turned double plays was like Jeter and Cano of the Yankees. They were flawless. Vince has an awesome bat. He’s hitting .,328 with four homers and 27 RBIs. The sky’s the limit for Vince in this game. His bat is incredible, he’s a highly clutch hitter and his fielding is becoming excellent. Another stellar baseball player.
I watch interviews with Corbs and the players after every game, and what impresses me most is the character and integrity of these guys. Just outstanding young men. Every one of them. They’re team guys first and foremost. There’s just a unity and unselfishness about this team that is unique. It’s pretty unbelievable really. I’ve never seen anything like it on a team. Just a first rate group of kids. Corbs recruits not only fantastic baseball players, but also he recruits extremely high character guys every year. From Connor to Yaz (who’s an excellent baseball player as well), to Tony, to Tyler Beede to Brian Miller, to Conrad Gregor, it’s really unbelievable the commitment to excellence of these guys and the integrity they possess personally. They respect their opponent, the game and the work required to be elite. Just an awesome group of guys. Really proud to be a small part of this baseball team with my writing on the team and being a VU alum. I love these guys.
One last thing: Tyler pitched a beauty Saturday afternoon, allowing only one run, with no walks and 10 K’s. Tyler has a 97 MPH fastball at times and an incredible changeup and a good curve. He’s almost unhittable at times. His walks were an issue for a while, but he looks like he has that under control. We’re still trying to establish our Sunday starter. Phillip Pfeifer is a very good pitcher with good stuff, but Pfeif is still getting his Sunday role down. He still struggles a little bit. T.J. Pecoraro came in and threw well Sunday after coming back from injury last week. T.J. may be our man on Sundays as the season keeps progressing. We’ll see how that develops. Pfeif is going to be a good pitcher for us, but T.J. is established and may be a better option down the road. He can be a dominant pitched when he’s healthy. We’re set on Friday Nights with Zo and Saturdays with Tyler. And we’ve got guys coming out of the bullpen like Carson Fulmer who are bringing it in the high 90’s. It’s pretty satisfying to know the starters have that kind of pitching behind them.
Just excited for the rest of the season. It’s highly competitive in college baseball and the SEC is as tough as it gets, but we’ve got a terrific baseball team and i’m excited to see us keep progressing.
Watched the spring game Saturday Night and was very impressed. Defensive line led by the awesome Stephen Weatherly (defensive end) is going to be very good. We don’t have a huge amount of depth there, but the players we have on the line are outstanding. Thought all three quarterbacks performed very well. Austyn Carta-Samuels is the ultimate leader. You listen to ACS in interviews and he’s very impressive. He’s confident, enthusiastic, he’s team focused and he has an extremely high motor. Thought ACS did some good things on Saturday. Throws it well and runs it well. His leadership is what stands out most to me. Awesome guy. Patton Robinette and Johnny McCrary are going to be excellent quarterbacks for us in the upcoming years. There’s still a competition going on for the No.1 job, though I like ACS to win it. Patton made some nice throws and can run. Johnny is just a tremendous athlete who has an excellent arm and great wheels. Really like what I saw out of Johnny. Johnny lost his father last week which is very tough, but he’s handled it with the utmost courage and character. Awesome young man.
Defense is going to be fantastic. We were missing a couple of players. Walker May and Barron Dixon have been hurt this spring, and they’ll definitely be key pieces to our dline, but Vince Taylor, our big defensive tackle, is terrific. He’s hilarious too. He gives us that Warren Sapp- personality. When Vince makes a tackle he starts shaking that head as in “Not in my house, no sir.” He’s really a classic kid. Love Vince’s enthusiasm and personality. Excellent player. Can dominate up front next season. JMatt and C Boyd looked as good as usual. Just fantastic wide receivers. Jonathan Krause needs to have a good year for us too. Jonathan has the abiliy. Would love to see him give us a third option at wide out. O line looked good. Spencer Pulley, who started at center, is masssive. He looks to be 325-330. O linemen have gained strength and weight and we look like a top flight SEC line now. The defense was really good Saturday, so our line was challenged. The defense won the day, but the o line is good. It was more a testament to our d line which is exceptional than our oline. We now have 15 scholarshipped linemen and they are good football players. The leadership comes from senior tackle Wesley Johnson, who looks like he can play on the next level. Wes is an awesome kid who played at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville. He’s tough, he’s confident, and he’s an outstanding player. He’ll be our leader there along with Spencer Pulley and Joe Townsend, who will be our centers.
Linebackers and dbacks are fine. Still trying to figure out the other corner spot opposite the awesome Andre Hal, who is another next level player. Steven Clarke looks like the leader at the other corner. Steven is a hard-nosed, opportunistic player. Torren McGaster will give Steven a run for his money. Torren looks like he’ll be an excellent player for us. Kenny Ladler and Javon Marshall will man the safety positions maybe. Kenny is firmly entrenched as the starter at one free safety–he’s another next level player–but Javon may have a tough time beating out Corey Batey, who is a prototypical safety as far as physicality goes. Should be good competition at strong safety.Linebackers are pretty loaded led by middle linebacker Chase Garnham, who is our leader there. Chase is a hard-nosed football player. Would like to see our linebackers create more turnovers this year. That would be a big plus for our defense.
The running backs looked good Saturday. Wes Tate will be the starter, but Brian Kimbrow will play quite a bit and Jerron Seymour is another who will get some carries. Wes is so versatile running and catching the football. He has tremendous 40 speed, so I’d like to see that transfer over to the football field more. Would like to see him take it the distance more. BK can just fly. He’s going to be excellent this year and will be a game breaker/changer for us. Jerron didn’t have a great spring game in my opinion, but he’s had a very good spring. So we’ll see how he develops. He’s coming back from an injury last year that kept him out for the season.
Very encouraged by what I saw. Instead of predicting how many wins we’re going to have, I’m just going to worry about Ole Miss. We can possibly win every game. At Texas A&M and @ Florida in consecutive weeks in November will be tough. We have Georgia at home the week before the A&M game. We have to play, of course, Ole Miss at home and we play South Carolina on the road early in the season. I’m looking at eight or nine wins this year, possibly one more if we can knock off one of the four teams of Georgia, Florida, A&M or SC. But James’ attitude of being 1-0 each week seems to be working very well for this football team. It really works. We’ll just try to be 1-0 on August 29th at 9:15 PM ET/8:15 CT on ESPN when we play Ole Miss. Recruiting is going fantastically with the addition of an excellent defensive end and qb on Saturday. Quarterback is amazingly loaded for the future at Vanderbilt University. This program’s future is unlimited under James Franklin and his coaches. So pumped about it.
Brandt shot 75 on Sunday at Augusta after having the third round lead. Not his best. He’s still learning how to win majors. They counted Adam Scott out last year after he blew a lead at the British Open on Sunday, and did he ever come through on Sunday. So Brandt is still very much in the picture this year for wins and maybe a major. He’s 32 and has a lot of excellent golf ahead of him. Brandt playing in the RBC Heritage tournament this week in Hilton Head where he won two years ago in a playoff over Luke Donald. The mistakes happen at Augusta on Sunday. The pressure is intense. Still think Brandt has the clutchness and will regroup this week. He has a shot in the rest of the majors, but this week is important too at Hilton Head. He could get it done and his momentum would be right back. Luke is playing this weekend also. Made the cut two weeks ago at the Valero Texas Open, so that was a big plus. Shot -3 on Sunday at Valero. Will hit ya back soon. Baseball plays Tennessee Tech tonight. Will be in touch. Thanks.