Auburn baseball's biggest concern after latest flop? A lack of identity
· Yahoo Sports
AUBURN — It all looked and felt rather unfamiliar after Auburn baseball's latest contest.
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Under the lights at Plainsman Park, the 12th-ranked Tigers dropped a midweek in the worst of fashions, falling 15-4 to Jacksonville State in eight innings, with the Gamecocks handing Auburn its first run-rule defeat at home in exactly two years.
The result was disheartening, undoubtedly, but in case there was any questioning its significance, all one had to do was look out to left field and see one man — head coach Butch Thompson — addressing his entire team. For nearly 15 minutes.
As for what was said, Thompson initially declined to comment, though one of his seniors summed it up.
"We need to make sure we’re playing for the name on the front instead of the name on the back of our jerseys," Logan Gregorio said. "I’m confident that we’ll do that. We already do that, but we’re going to make sure we keep the team centered from here on out and continue to grind every single day, because we know it’s a privilege that we wear Auburn on the front of our jersey."
Eventually Thompson did go a little further, with plenty to say about both the night and the big picture, but his most pertinent comments encapsulated Auburn's biggest disappointment since SEC play began.
"We've been saying that we've got more offense, but it hasn’t consistently shown up," he said. "When it has, like two of the three games last weekend, it hasn't been consistent enough to help us keep going, so I'm concerned about the growth of that — and really, Game 32, I'm concerned about the identity. If I had asked them to recite, 'What's our identity as an offense?' I don't think I have a coach or a player that can give me an answer."
Since Auburn's first game against the SEC, it's averaging 4.7 runs per game. That's across 16 contests, in which Auburn had gone 8-8.
In its eight losses, Auburn's averaging 2.4 runs. It's scored more than five runs in one of those defeats, which has included one shutout and three run-rule losses, the latest of which came against the Gamecocks.
Thompson said the midweek "was a different feel" for the Tigers, so much so he had to corral his whole team in the outfield.
"I wasn’t willing to wait 48 hours and keep this wound open, because it was not a good feel for us," Thompson said. "I needed them to tell me what I just saw, because ultimately I’m responsible for all of it. There are some things that I’m trusting players and coaches to be able to control and be able to do our jobs and with the right spirit. I thought we fell extremely short of that tonight."
As for what Auburn's players communicated back to him?
"Some of it, I didn’t like what I heard, but I thought I had some honesty," Thompson said. "I thought, when I looked them in the eye and asked them a couple of things, I got honesty. That’s a start."
Adam Cole is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at [email protected] or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @colereporter.To support Adam's work, please subscribe to the Montgomery Advertiser.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: What Butch Thompson said after Auburn baseball's loss to Jacksonville State