The final Diamond Talk of the year heard Ryan Brauninger and Scott Clendenin put a bow on the Rob Childress era and discuss the latest with A&M's coaching search. Kendall Rogers joined from Hoover to share his thoughts on what has been a thrilling SEC Tournament.
Key notes from Kendall Rogers interview
- It's becoming a little bit of a drag at the SEC Tournament, but after last year, I will not complain about being at the ballpark all day.
- When you look at the game last night, the story was Kumar Rocker vs. Patrick Wicklander. A big-time matchup turned into the Kevin Kopps show. He throws up three more zeroes and notched five strikeouts. Let's assume Arkansas is in Omaha, with as good offensively they are, beating them at that graveyard of a ballpark with Kopps on the mound sounds impossible.
- Keep an eye on Florida. They're finally starting to play like the preseason No. 1 team, and the Gators are trending up. Mississippi State is trending down, and they are right on the bubble of getting a top-eight seed. Frankly, they looked awful this week.
- What's so funny about Kopps is he's so dominant but is only throwing 89-91. He's throwing cutters and sliders, and it's like he's throwing whiffle balls. Vanderbilt had no answer for him. The key to beating Arkansas is to get on them early so they can't come back from it and bring Kopps in.
- Florida is probably the most talented team in this league. I still think they're a little more talented than Vanderbilt, but the Commodores are a 1B for me. They're missing Carter Young a little bit this week. Arkansas would have to be in that discussion as well, but they don't have the high-end prospect that the other two teams have.
- First of all, Rob Childress had an excellent tenure at Texas A&M. You could argue they should have won more in Omaha and gotten to Omaha more. With Childress, it seems like he's in the mix for that job at Rice. If I could get Childress there, I'm not sure I'd take another call. He could turn that program around in Conference USA pretty quickly.
- I know some people were upset when Tim Tadlock got that extension at Texas Tech. If I were an athletic director, I wouldn't get a guy a lifetime deal because what happens if he's 72 and doesn't want to stop coaching? You could get a Wayne Graham situation where it becomes messy, and Tech could be on the hook for a lot of money. You don't get somebody a lifetime deal unless there is serious interest in someone going somewhere else. Give Ross Bjork credit for shooting his shot.
- Attention should turn to Jim Schlossnagle and Tony Vitello. Schlossnagle's success at TCU has been well documented. Hiring Vitello would be like hiring a Lincoln Riley-type at Oklahoma. He's hard-nosed and very energetic. I would not expect the coaching search to get past those two names. I would be shocked if it weren't one of those two.
