Butch Thompson on No. 5 Auburn Tigers' Youth: 'A Challenge at Times'

The No. 5 Auburn Tigers are set to take on the No. 4 Georgia Bulldogs in a crucial three-game series at Plainsman Park beginning on Thursday night.

The Bulldogs have already clinched the SEC regular season championship with their 21-6 conference record, but Auburn and Alabama are tied for fourth with a 16-11 record. Only three games separate fourth from 11th.

Auburn has been is coming to the close of a brutal schedule that's seen them play series against No. 7 Florida, No. 9 Oklahoma, No. 7 Texas A&M, and No. 10 Mississippi State before taking on Georgia this weekend.

Auburn won each of those series, and they're doing it with a talented group of young players. Of the eight players who have at least 100 at-bats this season, there are no seniors and as many freshmen as juniors (2 each). Each of the four pitchers over 50 innings is a sophomore.

Head coach Butch Thompson admits there have been some growing pains along the way with his young, but very talented, team.

"I just think them being young has been, it's a challenge at times," Thompson said with a wry grin on Wednesday afternoon. "

The talk of "process" is a buzzword in sports that gets overplayed, but with so many games in baseball, the process pays dividends over the long haul with such small margins.

"We've tried to stay away from being focused on the results so much," Thompson said. I do think they've been resilient in that. As recently as like a Mississippi State, losing game one and coming back and being able to win a series. So some of this youth is a challenge here or there, and you stump your toe and don't get what you want and kind of scratch your head, but then some of it is kind of a blessing to be young."

Auburn may be young, but they're winning, and the environments they've been playing in will pay dividends this post season and beyond.

In some of these big places and venues and environments and teams that we played, for them to just play ball. So there's some, there's some good and some challenges to that. The A&M series could have went either way. The Mississippi State Series could have went either way. Time and time again, they found a way across the finish line."

The regular season is a grind, and in the SEC, it's a meat grinder. Thompson has been pleased with the maturity and growth he's seen from his young club.

"I've been with them every day and how hard this journey's been, how much they've continued to get up and go battle, and, trying to find some juice," Thompson said. We don't have time to get the time off now. We, we've got to be able to rally and find some juice for this series to finish strong cause that was our commitment was 5 weeks, and there's 3 more games left to accomplish that before we get ready to reset and head to the conference tournament."

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