Everything Rob Vaughn Said Before Alabama Baseball's Game Against Miami

The Crimson Tide head coach on Thursday shared about his team's Friday game against Miami.

May 20, 2025; Hoover, AL, USA; Alabama head coach Rob Vaughn gives directions from the dugout during the game with Missouri in the first game of the SEC Baseball Tournament at the Hoover Met. / Gary Cosby Jr. / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Alabama baseball coach Rob Vaughn, in his second season leading the team, spoke Thursday with reporters about the upcoming NCAA Tournament Hattiesburg Regional. He revealed which pitcher is starting the opening game against Miami (2 p.m. CT, ESPN2), and discussed many other things.

A full transcript from Vaughn's availability is below.

On pitching plan for the weekend:

" I don't, I don't think necessarily for the weekend. We know we're going to do tomorrow. You know, we're going to start Riley Quick, is going to go tomorrow against Miami. So we know that right now. We'll, we'll kind of play by ear from there, you know, depending on who we're playing, what that is, what time it is, all a lot of different factors. But we're going to shoot, shoot Riley tomorrow. He's going to be ready to rock."

On whether the team has a chip on its shoulder from not being picked as a host:

"I mean, we all wanted it, don't, don't get me wrong. I mean, we were all, there was in a level of disappointment, frustration, whatever you want to call it, but at the end of the day, like that was in our hands, you know? And I think that's the one thing we have to look ourselves in the mirror and say, is, yes, would it have been great to host you're, you're, dang right, it would have. I thought we had a resume that that was respectable, but so does probably 20 other teams in the country too, and only 16 of them get to do it. So we take care of business, and we do some things differently, maybe throughout the year. There's no question about it. We left it to a little bit of doubt. We got kind of left on the outside. So there's been a chip on these shoulders, on these kids shoulders, since February. You know, like a lot of these, it's what I've talked about a lot, man, it's, it's, it's kids that at some point, man, in their career, it's, you ain't good enough, you're not fast enough, you don't hit hard enough, you don't throw hard enough, whatever it may be, a lot of these guys are second chance dudes and dudes that that bet on themselves and went some different routes to school, and so these kids just wake up with the chip on their shoulder. And I think, you know, this is just another thing you look up at the beginning of the year, and we picked 13th in the league. You know, we were not in any major poll all year, up until, up until this, you know, probably weeks before something like that. So, so, yeah, I think these kids just live their life with the chip on their shoulder. It's why I love them. It's why I think we got a chance to go make some noise in this tournament."

On importance of length/innings from starting pitchers:

"Yeah, I mean, this the starting pitcher, just carries so much of the emotion of the game with him, you know, and he sets the tone. He sets everything for the game. And think that's why we love kicking off the regional with Riley Quick. I mean, he's tough as nails. It's stuff, it's all that stuff. But that dude loves Alabama more than anybody, and we're we know what we're going to get out of him. And I laughed with him. I don't know that I'm gonna let him go 120 [pitches] but we are going to pull the reins off a little bit and let that kid run. He's ready for it."

On whether rest might have disrupted offense's rhythm:

"I mean, no, not really. I mean, yeah, sometimes you get in the rhythm of playing more games. I mean, the bottom line is, we want to spend more time at Hoover because Hoover's awesome, like, that's such a great tournament, such a great event. It's in an hour down the road, our support from fans and Hoover's electric. You want to, you want to be playing into the weekend at Hoover, just because Hoover's cool . But at the end of the day, like these kids are, man, that we've had so many at bats over the last four months. You know, I was joking them at practice the other day. I said, Boys, we're going to come out and do some different things. But if we can't do a bunt D on May the 25th then we have failed you mightily up until this point. So we were able to get some work in. We were able to get some at bats. We did some live at bat, some different things this last week to kind of just make sure they're ready to go. But man, the next potentially three to four weeks of college baseball, which this group is very capable of playing, it's a grind. And shoot, we, if we can get off to a good start this weekend and play some good baseball, we may look up in three weeks and say that early exit from Hoover was the best in the world for us to get that kind of... for the last push."

On whether a short distance to travel factors into anything:

"Well, you hope, I mean, it's two and a half hours down the road, you know? So I think it's, it's very capable for people to get here this this place is such a cool place, like, I love playing at Southern Miss. The crowds are great. It's a little bit like the throwback college baseball. It's with the college baseball I grew up with it. It's going to sound crazy. It has like the rose and black feel. It has that. It's like, Well, you're in this new age of college athletics, of facilities, and you look around the SEC and some of these other places in the country, and they're beautiful. TD AmeriTrade, or whatever it is. Charles Schwab now. Is gorgeous, like it is awesome, but you lost some of that nostalgic baseball, real, just what it's supposed to be in. Man, Southern Miss has that in spades. That's what this park is when you walk into that. And so, so, so, yeah, it's great being down the road, you know, I wish I wasn't playing one of my dear friends in Christian Ostrander. I wish, I wish we saw each other a little bit later in the tournament, but one of us gets to come out of this thing. Hopefully, you know, we'll see. What I'll tell you is, there's four good teams here, you know, and would we allow the host? Yeah, but you have four teams. You got an Ivy League team. It's got the player that you're in the Ivy League. You've got a Miami team that showed you that they can be as hot as anybody in the country at times, and has some star power and COVID and siskar, the guy they're starting against us. Man, it is real, real, real stuff. And so, so it's going to be, it's going to be a knockdown drag out weekend, but you're hoping being two and a half hours down the road, we, we get some Tide fans rolling down here."

On familiarity of having played in Hattiesburg in 2024:

"You know, we were laughing today. I think they're saving Middleton for game two. I don't think Middleton is going game one. I don't believe. And I was reminding Kade that bullet opposite field, pinch hit, homer he hit was off JB, Middleton, so I would not hate if we can get in that game and let him relive some of those fireworks. But, yeah, you know, I mean, it helps, but it's just different. You play a team on a Tuesday, you and I both know it's just a different it's just a different it's a different field to different vibe. You're seeing different arms. We're seeing different arms, and they have they're seeing different arms, and then we threw against them, you know, you played them on a Tuesday. There's just a different atmosphere and a different vibe. On a Tuesday, they were coming off this hellacious road trip to Marshall left to that. So you're familiar with their team, but, you know, it's not like we wouldn't play them in a weekend series. We got them for one game on a Tuesday. So, so yeah, I mean, is there some familiar we know their style, we know some of that stuff, but it don't make it any easier to beat them, you know? But before we even get there, we got to deal with a really talented Miami team that that is going to give us all we can handle. That. That starting pitcher, I'm telling you, it's they had a couple guys they were going to roll out to start, and I'm being completely honest, this is the guy that I was not wanting them to start, and he hasn't been starting a ton of their Fridays. But it's really good stuff, man. Low, slot, sinker, slider, up to 94, feel for a change up. And it's just real sink. It's just a it's a tough matchup. So it's gonna, we're gonna have to have Riley really compete for us and keep us tight and give us a chance to win it late tomorrow."

On whether it will be a challenge for Riley Quick to get the ball first for the first time this season:

"The beautiful thing about Riley Quick is Riley Quick is who he is every single day a week, good bad or indifferent, like him or love him, he is going to be himself and that's what makes him awesome. That's what makes me have to smack him in the head sometimes when he does stupid stuff, but it's what makes him a beautiful kid. Is you are getting the ultimate competitor. You are getting a football player standing on the baseball field in the middle of the diamond. You're getting that, whether it's a scrimmage on a Tuesday in the fall, or whether that's game one of a regional. Like, that's just who Riley is. So I trust I he ain't going to make this bigger than it is. He's going to go out and be himself and go compete his butt off. And I know we will get every ounce of what Riley Quick's got this weekend."

On 2024 Tallahassee Regional experience:

"No, I think I'm trying to forget the Tallahassee regional last year. That was a, that was not a good performance by the boys. I think the big thing with that, you know, I think I was talking about this on the radio the other day with somebody is, you know, I felt like last year's team, and we just exhausted our arm strength to get to that postseason. We were scratching, clawing, fighting to get to the postseason and I think we were just beat very honestly. I thought our guys were tired. I thought they were emotionally drained. I thought it took everything they had to get there, and we didn't have enough when we got there. So that's kind of been our mindset from the first day of the fall. Is said, Man, nobody remembers how you start. Nobody is going to talk about this season in 2025 of the first time you won 41 since 2002 the record start that we went on winning 17 games only played. Nobody is going to talk about that if we go oh and two this weekend, nobody will remember this year like because you remember how people finish, and that's been our message from day one, is people remember how you finish. And so that's what I want for our kids. I just wanted to finish strong, because this team deserves a strong finish, and I want them to finish well. And this team's capable of doing a lot of things. This could things. This the game of baseball, man, you got to have some things go your way. We got to have some guys play good at the right time. You got to have some bounces go your way over the next couple weeks. But I've played against teams, and I've competed against teams that finished their season in Omaha, and I can tell you, this team is talented enough. This team is good enough. This team is tough enough now. Does that come to fruition over the next few weeks? And so, you know, the takeaway was more of a takeaway, not for this weekend. It was a takeaway from, from day one. And man, we got to be finishers. That has to be who we are."

On success of other prominent Alabama coaches in their second seasons:

"No pressure, right?... We set out from the rip when we got here to build something that the community of Tuscaloosa would be proud of that, that alumni would look back on, and players that maybe have been disconnected with the program, maybe players that have been lifelong baseball fans, that they could just be proud of, that it's young men that they felt like were were good representations of what they wanted the program to be. And man, this is not a finished product like this is but I'm very happy with I just sit back and look at this team all the time, and I would not trade one of these kids for anybody like the makeup of this group is exactly, exactly what I love coaching. Man, there's personality. There's so many things like this. This turned into a business in so many ways, and I understand it. But, man, we have some characters on this team. That's what makes this team who it is. I don't know if I'll ever coach a kid like Brennan Norton ever again. Like he is awesome and he's beautiful and he's all of these things like, this is just such a it's a great ride with this group and but man, like, that's the idea here. Is we're trying to build a sustainable program that that not only competes for championships, but that does it the right way in in a league where there's there's a lot of people that are willing to kind of bend rules and do things a little bit outside the box, like we want to build it with people, I think that's what Greg [Byrne] has built his athletic department with and all those guys you just named. I wasn't fortunate to know Coach Saban very well. I met him once or twice, but I know Coach DeBoer pretty well. I know Coach Oats pretty well. Murph was at our selection show the other day, and the common thread like, those are just unbelievable human beings, like great, great people and to me, that's what I want to do, like Greg brought me here to do a job, and that's what I'm trying to do to the best of my ability. And I hope, I hope your two proves to be that that exact same thing that it was for those guys, but I'm really proud of the culture that we're building here and continuing to create."

On player nicknames and the personality of the group:

"Yeah, that's what's so fun. I think this game is still a game, man. Like, this is still a game, and there's still young people and this, we don't need to put the cart before the horse and make this thing some boot camp thing. And so we are, man, we're nicknamed people like now Brennen Norton went ahead and nicknamed himself, which is an ironic way of doing it. If you know Norty, you would understand. But he's like introducing himself to people when he was here on his visit with like 'Cuballo'. Is that what he says?. I think it means horse or something. But like, never met a kid that's introducing himself as his nickname to his new teammates before he committed. That's Norton. Norton's unequivocally who he is. That's a fun it's a fun human being to be around. My wife literally told me the other day, she's like, that dude just brings so much joy to your team. Like, I love when he's on the field. I was like, alright, babe, I get it and I get it. I'll play him, fine, but he's the best. Shaq [Braylon Myers]. You know, that was his name coming in. I mean, he was, he was, I guess, came in here as number 32 when he first got here. And that was a nickname that was kind of given to him. And, you know, he's converted to 22 now, but name kind of just stuck. So, you know, he's Shaq. I mean, I think there's everybody's got a nickname on this team, some of which I can probably share. Some of these, probably I shouldn't share. But I think that we don't call anybody by their real name. I don't, I don't. I think, if you're around, like, Papi is a pretty obvious one. That was one that was fun coming in for [Jason] Torres, like, man, I think, I think it just brings, like, a personal level to what we do. You know, I don't think it's, it's not this forced thing. We don't sit in there. It's just, it's organic, it's fun, and it's just it's such a fun group of kids, like, this this group deserves a lot of success. And so, man, there's some fun storylines, there's some interesting characters on this team. And some of them are older players that, man, I'm gonna miss like heck when those guys move on. All right, thanks everybody."

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