Everything Butch Thompson said as Auburn departs for the College World Series
AUBURN – The Auburn baseball team departed from Plainsman Park on Wednesday on their way to Omaha, Nebraska for the College World Series.
The team didn’t arrive back into Auburn from Corvallis, Oregon until 10 p.m. CT on Tuesday night, so it was a quick turnaround.
The 14-seed Tigers (42-20) face Ole Miss (37-22) on Saturday night at 6:30 p.m. CT in the final game of the first round. Auburn will be the home team for the contest.
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Head coach Butch Thompson met with the media before boarding the buses to head to the airport. Here’s what Thompson said:
What’s the team’s mindset?
We have to go figure out a new setup. We had to go 2,000 miles last week to figure all that out — an amazing program who had never lost a Super Regional game at home — we just had to get back home, wash clothes, hit the weight room and get some swings in. The guys have done an amazing job with ‘no excuses.’ They’ve done a great job of simplicity. That’s been key.
What can you bring with you from your last experience at Omaha in 2019?
This is a players’ game. Practice is for the coaches, games are for the players. I think having a program there recently, players that have been there, that’s more powerful. When you haven’t been there in 22 years, that’s hard. We have some players on the team that have been there, it’s more powerful to be player driven. I’ve coached in the old Rosenblatt. I’ve been left on that field after 13 days and losing a national championship. I have some experience. Hopefully there’s some words and we’ll limit distractions. Hopefully we can offer some line of protection because we’ve been out there. I understand those traps and we’ll try and limit that with this team. You can hear it in their voices, there’s an intention of not getting there, there’s an intention of going for it and having success. It already makes me feel pretty good before we take off, that they are interested in having success and play championship-level baseball. Thinking about a championship, that was my goal a few weeks ago. It was a bold enough statement, but when you believe and trust in a group, it’s time and OK to call that out.
Reflect on success so far?
I think it’s weakness to do that. It’s an absolute weakness. There will be plenty of time to do that. Soon as the day is over, the season is over, we’ll have time to reflect. We’re recruiting as much as we’re playing games right now, to be honest with you. This stuff never stops. We’re trying to pay attention to a lot of different things. You tell that yourself as an athlete. There should be a level of confidence, but you don’t want it to cross the line of arrogance.
How about playing Ole Miss first?
It’s not about whether you’re familiar. It’s about good, and more importantly, hot. This will come down to execution. Half of that field, we’ve played. I’m thankful we get to play Ole Miss, a familiar opponent. When they were number one in the country when they came here, they are lights out. That wasn’t me trying to cover tracks from losing two of three. That’s a special ball club. That have positioned themselves and righted the ship. I’m excited to play them. The guys probably know them. This will be fun. I mentioned this in Oregon, how impressive you have to admit that half of the College World Series field is from the same division. It’s to be respected. It’s unique. We are probably dusting up our Ole Miss stuff — we’ll spend more time on Stanford, because we know the least about that program. They aren’t the same Ole Miss team, and we aren’t the same Auburn team.
On relying on experience within the team?
(Auburn) has great leaders that have played in Omaha, and we’ve added pieces that have made a difference in our ball club. Sonny (DiChiara), (Blake) Rambusch, Bobby Peirce, those have been huge. We’ve had guys grow. Trace Bright, Joseph Gonzalez, and absolutely Blake Burkhalter — we’ve gotten all this help. The belief is we can play more dimensions. Winning a regional, everybody knows that was an offensive weekend. We played enough offense facing a high-level pitching staff, but at the end of the day, our pitchers intention, there intent, their conviction absolutely carried the day. Those guys helped us win a Super Regional. Now we’re seeing (Tommy) Sheehan’s best outing, (Chase) Isbell’s best outing, (John) Armstrong getting us out of a pinch, and (Carson) Skipper and Burkhalter absolutely standing in the gap and beating an amazing program. Our defense has been amazing — Nate LaRue’s impact, his arm can impact a baseball game. I think we have some dimensions that give us confidence that we can win more than one way. If Plan A isn’t working, we have a Plan B and Plan C that can have some success.
On Nate LaRue’s impact:
He’s grown weekly. You can’t have a team that’s competitive at this stage without a great catcher. He keeps getting better. Receiving of the baseball, making decisions in the moment, in tune with the game, Tim (Hudson) and our pitchers, it’s at another level. They can claim that victory. I can’t claim that victory — those guys are making the decisions. When you let people do that and make decisions, they grow.
