saminbama

Yeah. In this regard, I feel football is like baseball and softball. You can never have too many QB's or too many pitchers.

When does Fall Camp start?

Ditto

There was a time when I could, but now I can't remember.

Can someone explain this rule? What has Cadillac been doing that prevents us from hiring him?

Does Kayode Oladele not enrolling free up a slot for Sandberg?

Dang it. She was my #1 choice last year. Thought she would never leave OU. We obviously didn't try hard enough to get her.

Wow. That does change the dynamic. If my memory serves me correctly, which is a big if, I believe Jimmy Kolaitis has local connections. I think he was mentioned as a hitting coach for us at one time. That level of compensation is really surprising with all of Oregon's money. Oklahoma will have more competition in the Big 12. I guess I should read the thread about UAB's new coach. Short term, this won't help us. Congrats to the new Coach K. Any other coaching changes? Did Mizzou hire a new coach?

Long article and as some have said it is very wordy. Most of the things mentioned were already rumored so there really wasn't anything new. I think the literary term for the second player in the article is a 'Red Herring'. Didn't add too much to the article. I was very pleased when we hired Coach Myers and he took us to unprecedented success for our softball program, but I now have to wonder if it was worth it. Student athletes at Auburn University should never be subjected to these conditions. No parent wants their child to get THAT type of education at a fine institution of higher learning, and none of these girls deserved that experience. I hope Coach Dean can right the ship, but he may need more time than most are willing to give. It may require a complete turnover of players before it happens. If he isn't able to right the ship or he isn't given enough time, it may be 4 or 5 years before we get back to the point where we are truly relevant in softball again, and by that I mean in the WCWS. Here's hoping it will be sooner rather than later.

Actually, she did sit out this year. https://jmusports.com/news/2018/1/19/jmus-megan-good-to-miss-2018-softball-season.aspx

We're now down to 3 pitchers. It may get interesting real soon. If I'm Martin, I'm telling Dean I want a full ride, if she's not on one already.

I can remember against Alabama a situation where the rules used him. Can't remember exactly who it was, maybe Podany, but he didn't notify the umpire that he was reinserting her after pinch hitting and it cost us. I know the competition he faced at JMU, other that a few games against power 5 teams, wasn't anything like the SEC. So in regard to game decisions, I hope this was a learning year. Defensively, I'm not concerned about next year. I think we'll be fine. My concerns are hitting and pitching. It is way more difficult to teach hitting, but pitching is another thing. Our returning pitchers have to develop new pitches. All need more speed. If Martin returns and, JMO , that may be a big IF, she has to have another pitch. She already throws a 67 mph drop. With her build, she could probably throw a 70 mph fastball or a curve, which would complement her drop and change up very well. Harris needs more speed as well. Her off speed is fine going through the order one time. After that, teams adjust and start hitting her. Same thing for Swindle, although you can add her penchant to give up long balls. Didn't see Bilodeau enough to know about her. One huge concern is we didn't sign a pitcher. If Martin does leave, we will be in big trouble. Whether or not she stays, it would be nice if we could pick up a grad transfer like FSU did. I see other schools' young coaches and several true freshmen contributing to their teams and I hope we aren't falling behind. If next year is worse than this year, it may be too late in that regard.

Yeah, I believe that BA is entire season. Skewed a little by Vic's .373 average and Makayla Martin's .333 average where she was 1-3 for the season.

Or hire a coach who can teach them. I know Ketelhut was a late addition and that didn't help our situation, but there was NO improvement during the season with our situational hitting. From start to finish, we couldn't hit. When you work with players every day, you study film, you work with players to find issues with their swing or stance any number of things, you expect to see some improvement over a period of 5 months. There was nothing. We had 5 girls who started at least 10 SEC games who hit below .200 in conference games and Victoria Draper barely hit over .200 at .203. That's two thirds of the batting order getting hits less than 20% of the time. Pitching and defense were good enough to win, but our hitting was absolutely horrible.

Rivera is carrying this team. She needs someone to step up and help her.