Preferably the infield. I'd greatly appreciate it.

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I've read posters saying we are too reluctant to use the portal. This is not entirely true. We wanted Montgomery and Burns. They liked us but went elsewhere. Sasaki was not a portal kid but out of the box and signed with Stanford. Still we can get on a roll at home and reboot. Never count these kids out. Ever.

NM

Aggies now #1, Arkansas 2, Kentucky 3 and TN 4. VU fortunate to only fall to 13.

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Hornets gonna Hornet

He scored 28 last night against the Lakers. While watching the game I was thinking this guy played here for three years and he did not come close to making the NCAA Tournament.

Through a couple connections, I can confirm Vandy is making 300k+ nil offers for high school recruits. I had been waiting to hear back from these connections to see if this MAJOR change in recruiting philosophy was real or all talk.

Today, 4-12-2024, I can say “Vanderbilt has arrived”

I was completely out of pocket and saw zero innings this weekend (I blame myself for the outcome because I could not watch a single out, which has never happened).

So, what was the deal?

I think we know who the guys are by now. Did anyone have a good weekend? From a pitching standpoint, I’m guessing no.

We have some freshmen who hit the ball hard, namely Holcomb and Poteet. Is it time to give some other guys a chance?

Espinal’s average has fallen. From .397 to .313, but I still see starters all batting above or close to .300 and that’s through today’s game.

What in the world happened? Can I just get a cliff’s notes version?

I have to think Corbin is sleeping in his office tonight. As much as I hate losing, he hates it more, so I can better deal with the losses, knowing the GOAT is stewing about it more than I am.

Were we back to Baxter ball? Taking first and second pitch strikes? Showing bunt to pull hack and take strike one?

Someone who knows baseball explain the weekend to me.

From Athlon, for Vanderbilt - WR, OL, DL

Kentucky…lmao….

This is the game thread

Let me preface this by saying I do not think the season is over. While this team is not up to our standards, in the national landscape they are still probably an average SEC team and top 16 team nationally.

Here’s why I remain hopeful for the future. While the lack of power and use of portal are big issues, the clear problem is the disappointing junior and senior classes. Not producing a high number of stars from those classes lowered the ceiling of this team significantly. Holton is the closest thing to a star this team has, and he’s more of a good Saturday pitcher than a Friday night ace. RJ Austin is a nice player, but he’s not on that level either. Also only a sophomore. Sweeps on the road last year against UT and UF and now this tell me these older guys just don’t have it. Maybe I’m wrong, but that tells me there is not enough mental toughness from guys who should be team leaders. The seniors and juniors not having a star who can hit that clutch homer or get that F U strikeout is the biggest problem for me. National championship squads almost always need that Rocker, Leiter, Swanson, or Bleday. These latest recruiting misses haven’t produced those guys. But there’s hope. This freshman class with Holcomb, Ossenfort, and Kozeal shows Corbin knows more power is needed. E MaC, Miller Green, and Seiber look like guys who can bring that much needed fire. There’s a great chance Corbin can take those guys on what last great run.

I think Corbin has shown he is willing to use the portal. Hopefully, this season motivates him to do a little more big game hunting. While we will never be LSU or UT in the portal, I think he’ll use it a little more. The one thing I don’t think he’ll do is fire Baxter. That’s another conversation, but I just don’t see that happening.

Obviously, this whole post hinges on me thinking it’s been more about recruiting misses and not getting guys through the draft. I think that’s the problem more than Brown and Baxter not developing guys, but I’m curious to hear y’all’s thoughts on that.

It’ll be interesting to see how this team rebounds. I have no idea what starting rotation gives them the best chance, but I don’t think Cunningham and Carter are answers there. Futrell needs to recover and look like himself to give us our best shot. It’s also time to play the youth with Kozeal and Holcomb going everyday, and maybe Ossenfort getting some platoon work.

Why is he not in the Masters but the other amateurs are?

Do we have any idea who’s on campus this weekend? There’s got to be a PG, right?

There has been lots of talk about Coach and the portal, etc. I have some thoughts which may be totally wrong but I wonder----relationships have always seemed to be important to Coach Corbin. He has always valued his relationship with his players, helping boys he recruits become terrific young men. He has always felt that relationships teammates have with one another, supporting one another, becoming a team striving toward a common goal was important. Coach Corbin has brought talented players to Vanderbilt and he has developed that talent and won championships with it. But I think it has been the building of relationships that has been his strength and the strength of the program. Now, with the "buy a player for a year" approach, building those types of relationships is much more difficult. This current system just does not fit Coach Corbin's personality or philosophy. However, perseverance is yet another quality you will find in Coach. So, I suspect he will be around for a while longer. He will figure out a way to stay true to his philosophy and his values and still have a championship level program under the current system of portal and NIL. However, in no way am I giving up on this season as I still feel this team can win. Let's all continue to support this team as we look forward as well to future teams with Coach Corbin leading the way.

Kentucky wins again, 6-5 at Auburn. Now 12-1 in league play; they haven’t played the toughest competition thus far, but that’s still extremely impressive.

Georgia kicked 5 field goals and beat Missouri 15-10.

Geez. This is deflating!!

Thought for sure he was going to miss the cut so I stopped watching yesterday. Looks like he will finish T28 after the third round. Used to be Top 16 qualified for next year's Masters, or something like that. If he gets hot tomorrow can he gain enough ground to qualify for 2025? Is there still a cut-off for that?

-The defense won the day by a somewhat significant margin today. That's without CJ Taylor but also without Sedrick Alexander and AJ Newberry.

-That being said, this is the best I've seen Nate Johnson to date. He had some ball security issues that Clark was unhappy with but I thought he made more throws than he had previously and his offenses generally moved. He may have been the only offensive player with a positive +/- on the day. Nothing super noteworthy out of the other quarterbacks, they probably took care of the ball better than Johnson but didn't move it as much, either. Berlowitz' long throwing motion concerns me considering they have o-line issues.

-Chase Gillespie made some plays but I struggle to see a way they're going to consistently be able to run it against defenses better than their own with the running backs. That's not only because they were shorthanded in the backfield. I'm thinking Nate Johnson may be their leading rusher if he is the starter.

-Quiet day for the receivers. They've got work to do in that room before the summer. I've liked what I've seen more from Hoskins than Dillon. They do seem to utilize the tight ends more than they did with Joey Lynch and Tim Beck seemed to light up when I asked him what he was looking for in a TE.

-Cole Spence seems to be the guy in that room and seems to be a threat in the red zone. Interested to see what Kam Johnson does when he returns to practice.

-Think they've only got eight healthy bodies on the offensive line currently and I'd expect some turnover there but it certainly needs to be better than it has been. It's also hard when the defense is throwing bodies at them and they only have eight guys, though.

-Seems like Leyton Nelson and Jake Ketschek may not have much of a future with the program, although Clark said that wasn't official. Said it will play out in the next week or so with Nelson, Josh Palmer and Dylan Pauley Betts. Ketschek seems to have begun the process of medically retiring.

-Defensively, Clark seems to really like their energy. They're flying to the ball at times and seem to be rallying around each other. Definitely more noticeable energy than the offense.

-They also seem to have what Clark called the blueprint working defensively. They're starting to stack some depth.

-Kolbey Taylor is the most high-energy guy on that side from the looks of it. Bryce Cowan and Nate Johnson had some good friendly banter going, as well.

-I'm starting to buy that this can be a capable defense, but it's hard to know what's them being successful vs the offense struggling. But, they've got good top end guys like CJ Taylor and Langston Patterson, they've got some depth on the defensive line and have some experience there, really like their athletes at linebacker and safety.

-Didn't see much of an impact out of Prince Kollie. Think Longwell plays more, but it was nice to see him back out there healthy. That's another testament to their depth in the linebacker room.

-Randon Fontenette can really come down and hit which I think people will appreciate.

-I would venture to guess Dontae Carter plays the most out of any defensive freshman by a good margin. I admittedly am not a tremendously advanced defensive line evaluator, though. I do like Simeon Boulware more than I did when he was a recruit.

-Really like Tim Beck. Quincy Skinner mentioned that he talks with Diego Pavia every day which I thought was interesting. He seems to think he's got a big leap ahead of him.

-One more scrimmage next week before the end of spring ball.