@3strikes_AU @AuburnBaseball joins @ONTHEDMARK1 prior to @SEC baseball tournament

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Episode Transcript

(00:10):
And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we go to the hamlet's heighline.
We go to Allbury University to bringin the head baseball coach of the Tigers,
our good friend, Butch Thompson.Good morning, Coach Thompson, Good
morning war Eagle. What's your boardsup to this morning? Man? Coach?
My headsets so hot right now.I don't know what's going on.
Maybe it's m eight wins in arow you got? Is that what it
is? I don't know what itis. It's been a grind, I

(00:35):
tell you that, but it's uh, it's fun to watch these boys,
so it says here late in theyear, that's for sure. Well,
coach, congratulations has been a goodruin. I was thinking back since you've
been on the mart last coach,I don't think he's got the two losses
and a bunch of victories. Anddefinitely was the phone call. I just
want to make sure you knew thatwe got we gotta get some T shirts
put together. I was understood that. I realized that that's why I couldn't.

(00:59):
I had to with you again thismorning. There you go, you
know him, man, your team? Man, what a great finish coach
eight in a row, I meaneven I think twelve out of fourteen or
something like that. Coach, what'sbeen the big difference, guys hanging together
the case in how effect? Youknow. I got a center fielder that's
been been out there in that outfieldever since he stept on campus. And

(01:23):
he's not just a good center fielder, he's one of the best student athlete
leaders that I've seen him my thirtyplus years. So he just wheels some
stuff and he has enough, hehas enough respect in that clubhouse that everybody
kind of started straining with him,you know, followed him in a big
way, and we quit walking everybody. So we now we're making the other

(01:47):
fellow beat us. And when youmake the other fellow beaching, you get
more aggressive and you attack his owna little bit and don't create offense for
him, you can have some success. We've been pretty good offensively and played
really good defense all year, andthis pitching's hooked up and really started waving
that flag and making that other fellowbeatus who started winning some ball games.

(02:09):
Yeah, no doubt about it.Auburn baseball coach Butch Thompson on the march
with US SEC tournament time. TheTiger's going into the tournament with a very
very hot street, winning eight ina row. You got the late night
tonight, right, coach, Itlooks like it's gonna be pretty late.
I'm I'm at the Winfrey Hotel.I'm up on the fifteenth floor. I'm

(02:31):
looking out over the mat and everythingacross the way. It's still a little
gray and rainy this morning, butit's that way every year. It's the
SEC tournament. So we'll just we'llplay at some point. We might be
playing at midnight, but two cares. We're here to play baseball and looking
forward to it. There you go. What do you do today, coach?
What do you do with you guys? Like right now? It's early

(02:51):
and I really appreciate you being onthe mark I do. I know you
got a lot going on, andI appreciate that, Coach. You're awesome
to do that. But what what'sa like a what's a day for you
guys up there? Or today?Kind of not that we need no everything.
That's kind of a summary of whatyou guys will do. Yeah,
I'll start yesterday. You know,we had a good practice at home.
A lot of the teams practice here, but that's why we always come up

(03:12):
and play a game as that whopermet in the season to get acclimated to
the field and take infield outfield laya game batting practice. So we stayed
at home where we could practice alittle bit more and then uh did all
the media stuff. We headed upand got in a hotel last night,
got a good meal, and thenwent to bed. This morning, we'll
meet at nine thirty. I thinkyou're you're my fifth radio show while and

(03:38):
then we'll have free well, we'lleat breakfast this morning. The guys have
two or three hours to walk aroundthe mall and you know, kind of
lay low and we'll watch and monitorthis weather, and then we'll get back
together about three thirty for a pregamemeal and go over a scout report.
It's unique because we're playing Missouri again, laying the game series at Plainsman Park,

(04:00):
so it's turned into a four gameseries. And man, it's hard
to beat anybody in the league,you know, three games, much less
having to turn around do it afourth time. But that's what's required of
us. And then we'll go togo over to the ballpark, but not
to the main stadium. We'll goto another field, an alternate field,

(04:20):
take over our baton practice at fortyfive or fifty minute, and then we'll
get back on the bus. We'lldrive over to the park, hopefully about
the seventh inning of the game that'sbeing played, get in a locker room,
change clothes and and get ready totake the field. There's so many
games being played. There's four gameswe're trying to get in today. So

(04:42):
when one game ends, thirty minutesthe next game starts, so it's a
pretty quick turnaround for everybody there.You go. Butch Thompson with us,
he's live in Birmingham. SEC tournamenttime today. Four games today. The
Tigers play the late one tonight yousee it on the SEC network. Thompson
teams won eight in a row.The last eight they play Missouri, who

(05:02):
they just put the broom out onover the weekend. And coach, I
want to congratulate some of your players. Bryson Ware Irish and Casing Highwell all
SEC named yesterday. Right, Yeah, that's pretty incredible. You know,
it's like we can we can havethe number eight recruiting class in America,
but it might be six in theSEC. Yeah, Bryson Ware hits twenty

(05:25):
one homers and has a breakout year. He joined seven other Auburn people with
twenty or more home runs, likeFrank Thomas, josh Ethridge. You just
started thinking of some of the bestHunter Morris. You just start thinking of
some of the best sluggers and itgets them Second team LSU's got the Tommy
White kid with eighty five RBI.That's how good this league can be.

(05:47):
Case and Howell defensively on that AllDefense team is amazing. And then Nike
Iris Short an amazing freshman. He'sbeen for us. He's been the SEC
Freshman of the Week three times,including in in this past week. So
those guys are deserving. But man, we got guys. You know,
we've built a team and we've startedplaying like a team. So the some

(06:09):
of our parts has been pretty goodfor us, even with only landing three
guys on this All SEC team.Yeah, like how you said that only
three? I agree with the coachIrish. The young man you were talking
about, he's from Michigan. He'sfifth hits in the league with seventy nine,
second most for the SEC as afreshman and six among freshman NASH League
Wild coach, pretty strong right there. Good recruiting back by well, you

(06:33):
know, those those hitters are prettyeasy to see. We locked onto him
pretty quick. And his uncle isactually the head coach at Michigan State who's
a good friend of mine. Togive you a little backstory, and when
he really committed to playing in thisleague in the SECAs and we went hard
after him. A lot of thesehitters are born. Ike's been hidden since
he you know, put a batin his hand, and we were fortunate

(06:56):
to get him. And you know, Nate LaRue is another senior guy that's
done so good. He caught apitching staff to Omaha last year and has
done an amazing job this second halfwith this young pitching staff. And it
looks like next year all intentions thathe would move behind home plate vacated by
Nate LaRue and be a catcher forus. And he has a great arm
and a good field for the game, and I'm looking forward to that transition

(07:20):
in the offseason. All right,what's your thoughts on, coach, what
your team needs to do or todo going into the postseason regional? Is
there, you know, hosting areasonal what you think in coach? Yeah,
you know, I'm the coach andI love it, so I'm I'm
biased, and but I just whatwe have to do is continue to prepare

(07:40):
every day. So hopefully we preparegood yesterday and when we get in this
ball game, we have to fightfor twenty seven hours. We cannot face
a team the rest of this yearthat's gonna they should fight harder than us.
We cannot lose that battle if we'renot the most talented team. Every
time we take the field this week, we're gonna have to fight harder for
twenty seven outs. We're gonna haveto have discipline at bats. We're gonna

(08:03):
have to make that other fellow beatus, and we're gonna have to dominate
routine plays. If we do that, we can beat anybody in America,
which we have proven this second half. When we went to South Carolina,
they were twenty four and one,ranked two and then coming back and it
was their first loss. South Carolinadid not lose a series until May the

(08:24):
seventh. Good Girl late in theyear is Bad back home, we played
the number one team in America.LU. They had not lost the series
the entire year, so it's Mayfourteenth before they ever lose a series.
So I know both those teams hadn'tplayed as well since then, but we've
met them up front when they neitherteam had lost a series the entire year.

(08:46):
So we've shown that we can playall the way to the top,
and but we have to do itthis way. We have to do it.
I don't know if it's old school, if it's right, if it's
gritty. We don't have a choice, and we know that at and all
we're trying to do is is beourself and stay as hungry as we possibly
can. That's our best recipe.You thank you if you If things go

(09:09):
right, coach, you'll host aregional I do seventeen wins is a lot,
miss league, Seventeen conference wins isa lot. I think we're ranked
as high as thirteen sixteen RPI lookingat all the metrics. Um, yes,
I think we have done enough already, but they're we've worked so hard
to find ourselves and to get toone rhythm and one style of game to

(09:33):
play that you know, we wantto win some more ball games, and
so we're not gonna We're not gonnaask our guys to do more, because
when you start forcing the game andhad things happen, We're not gonna take
our foot off the gas thinking thatwe're that we got one of these.
Um, we're gonna absolutely just keepsharpening our acts every day and playing this
brand of ball that we found andwe're gonna run it off the We're gonna

(09:56):
run it off the cliff. Ilove it, and I love it.
Coach Butch with us is in Birminghamgetting ready for the night game. The
SEC tournament culture uses your team prettymuch healthy at this point. Yeah,
Um, you know, we weswept this past series and you know we
didn't even have our two starters startingpitchers, So that should prove the point

(10:18):
where are you healthy or not?It don't matter. Well you know what
I meant, But yeah, everyteam in our league has had injury.
It it can't stop us. Andif we you know, there's two ledgers.
There's a problem side and the solutionside. And when all these problems
come our way, if we stayon that problem side, it just dragged
you down. So whenever a problemis presented to us, we just absolutely

(10:41):
have sixty seconds. We're just gonnaget on the solution side and let's let's
find answers. Or let's what's oneimprovement we can make. We're not going
to stay on the problem side.And I think that made us a stronger
club. With Veil not being ableto start, with Herberhoe out for the
entire weekend, I think that madeus a stronger club. When Chase off

(11:05):
Something goes and has his best oubtingof his auguring career and Connor Copeland goes
has his best outing of his auburingcareer, I think that makes us a
stronger club. And if we sitthere and focus on them being out,
we can't do what those two guysdid and our team did, so I
think we're in a good place ofunderstanding that concept as well. And but
yeah, as far as injuries go, positionally all around the field, we've

(11:28):
been able to play with nine guysfor a while. That was not the
case early in the year. Andwe'll have every intention of putting Tommy Belle
back out there and start, sothat gets us arguably our best start of
the last five weeks this first gameof the tournament. That's a pretty positive
feeling going into tonight. Man,he's gonna be on the mount of the
night coach. Yes, sir,there you go. All right, anything

(11:52):
else you want to bring up,Coach before we go, but I don't
want to keep you too long now. Just people that support our program and
have hung in there with us,just appreciate you so much, sir.
I know that gives me an opportunityto say that when I come on the
show and I thank you for allyou guys do, well, thank you,
coach. You know how much weappreciate you too, Buddy, were
eagle and good luck today okay,and tomorrow and Saturday and bringing on home

(12:13):
okay. Sounds like a playing headcoach war eagle to you. That's Butch
Thompson, the head coach of theAuburn Tigers, nice enough to call us
from Birmingham at the team hotel,waiting to play baseball.