Bama vs Auburn Softball Series

[Krymsonman]

Agreed. I think we had nine players go through Senior Day. And after this abomination of a season, I expect a second mass exodus.

The prognosis for next year makes abysmal look like an aspirational goal.



Agreed. The numbers against SEC competition are just awful — W/L record, hitting, and fielding. Pitching isn’t horrible, but is below average overall.

Against the SEC, we’re already last in batting average, last in on base percentage, last in fielding percentage, and lead the SEC in errors. If not for Kayla Beaver, we’d likely be last in the SEC in pitching as well.

On top of all that, we regressed as the season wore on. As stated in an earlier post, I don’t know enough about the game to say whether that’s because of lack of talent, lack of mental focus in the face of a lost season, other teams figuring out how to attack our many weaknesses, or what. I just know that we got worse as time passed.

This is at least the third season we’ve seen this. Bailey Hemphill, Montana Fouts, Ashley Prange and a few others masked the problem in the W/L column, but they’re gone now. Even when they were playing, if you watched the games with any sort of evaluation, the hitting problem was obvious and has been for some time.

Hiring the volunteer to be the hitting coach was Murphy saying either “I don’t think we have a problem. I’m still the real hitting coach,“ or “This is the best I can do.” Neither is acceptable.

This season is a lost cause. Right now, today, I’m not sure Murphy can salvage the program. If we have the mass exodus I expect, I know he can’t.

Greg Byrne has some thinking to do.

I don't think the pitching was bad. We didn't have Montana Fouts out there, but we lost several close games in the SEC. By close I mean within 2-3 runs. Several were games where we were shut out. Of course we did have all of other "last in the SEC" categories you mentioned, especially the hitting. This has been building for years with Murphy's refusal to adapt to the modern softball game, particularly hitting. He should have talked to Coach Saban about how to adapt when the game changes. Just watching him in the Auburn series, I'm wondering if something is up. He just didn't look right. Maybe he's leaving, who knows. All I know is we've gone from elite program to also-ran in just a few years. We need somebody new to fix it.

 

[TideATL70]

The point was made last week about Murph getting to the point in terms of recruiting he probably just thought kids would come to T Town to play for him, and the 2012 NC certainly was great advertising. But even Coach Bryant had the where with all to realize he was making that mistake (around 1970?) and started an incredible second half of his Bama coaching career. I think coach realizes good postseason showing or not, he's gonna get called on the carpet and unless he has an incredible rebuild plan from top to bottom, Byrne is gonna be forced to do something. SB has for 20-25 years? probably been an afterthought for the AD as we ALWAYS seemed to finish top 3 in the SEC, win a regional, and either be in OKC or VERY close.
Totally different situation at this point. Looking up in the standings at Carolina, Mizzou and Miss State feels like a parallel universe.
I'll always be grateful for Murph as I didn't know the first thing about big time NCAA softball in the late 90s when I started following it and fell in love with it immediately-and obviously the NC, but if he can't produce concrete actions to turn it around, it's not fair to the program and the fans.