Auburn Baseball is PRIMED to be in a GREAT Spot in the LOADED SEC

0:00The SEC has 12 teams in the top 25 pure dominance. You're talking ball with the SEC squad. From Alabama to Tennessee, from Georgia to Oklahoma, from Auburn to Texas. It's the local experts of the Lockdown Podcast Network, bringing you scoops, breakdowns, and the most comprehensive preview of the upcoming SEC weekend. It's the SEC squad, and we have a seat for you. Perfect feelings of thin skin are prohibited. Squat up your part of the SEC squad. Yes, we are squatting up week three. Our third ever SEC baseball squad. I'm Zach Blackerby. I host locked on Auburn, Corey Burton, host of Lockdown Vanny, Stephen Willis, host of Lockdown Ole Miss John neighbors, host of Lockdown Razorbacks, Eric Kane, host of Lockdown Vols, Jimmy Stein, a co-host of Lockdown, and Alabama, 12 of the, I'm just kidding, Chris Mothers or two of Lockdown Gamecocks.

1:00I'm trolling 12 of the top 25 teams, gentlemen. Are from our conference. Can you, I mean, just pure, pure dominance, just two weeks through the season? I mean, isn't this just like another day at the office and another Tuesday for the SEC? It's like, hey, it's like coming in here and just being like, hey, the SEC and the football recruiting, 12 of them in the top 25 classes. It's like, whoa, yeah. But no, it's, listen, it's just a continuation of just this conference and the depth and the recruiting and the coaching and the way that these teams have played and some of the great matchups and the non-con they've had so far. So yeah, I mean, it's hard to say, but it's basically, if you're taking the SEC or the field to win it all, I think you're gonna have to take a team out of the SEC. Yeah, Stephen, it's all missed that got that 25th spot. They kind of slid up there to make it 12 out of 25. What have you seen from the Rebels so far this season? They just know how to win games. When the pitching isn't quite right, they hit the ball a ton. Whenever they have trouble with the bats,

2:01the pitching steps up, that's the way it works. It's complimentary baseball. They're playing right now and like I said, Dom Decker hit his first career home run, the dirt bag, the ultimate dirt bag hit a home run against Missouri State for sweet sweep on the weekend. There ain't no, they haven't lost and have southeastern Missouri tonight and they go for Baylor, coastal Carolina and Ohio State over the weekend. They have the tournament in Houston. If they get out of this weekend with an undefeated record, I think it's something you should start to look forward to them to be pretty good going into that dang gauntlet of a schedule they have for the SEC. Corey, we were giving you a hard time last week with Vandy being the only team with the losing record. Looks like you guys got some things figured out. We definitely got some things figured out at the plate. Four out of five wins were run rules. I mean, we faced a murderers row of Eastern Michigan in Maritz, so it was about to have a directional Michigan's. Thank you.

3:02We run rule them twice through a combined new hitter, actually, in the second game of that set, but just leading the league in home runs is something Vanderbilt has accomplished this week and they got Evansville tonight and then they go out to Vegas to play UC Irvine, Oregon and Arizona, so that'll give us a look at what Vanderbilt, if they've truly improved, they will win all three games out there in Las Vegas. Yeah, Eric Kane, give us a quick update on your balls. I liked it better last week when we were given Corey, crap about losing games. Same. Yeah, Eric, what happened there? Hey, hey, hey, Chris, take it away, man. I mean, kid stays good. Pretty good ball, bro. Is that the last thing Zach rolled his eyes at me? I did. I did. Yeah, hats off to Kent State. Well, I mean, you're favorite alum from Kent State. Just real quick. A Jack Lambert, just over Nick Saban.

4:03Just over Nick Saban. Yeah, I'm doing Edelman. That's mine 100%. Oh, it's right, Julian Edelman did come from Kent State. What about James Harrison? Anyway, Kent State is pretty good ball club. I mean, they're a trendy regional team here in the preseason and in the early season. We'll see what happens. Then they were picked to win the Mac. I mean, they're a good team, but Tennessee played horrible. You stole one on Friday night. You had a walkoff pinch at home run to win four to three. You have 16 strikeouts in Saturday's game, and you'll lose two to one. You know, why? Because you were 0 4 11 with 0 5 15 with runners on, 0 4 9 with runners in scoring position. And then Sunday, you'll lose nine to five and your ball pin just some clothes and one inning. And you know, really go back to Saturday with the 16 strikeouts and you couldn't hit anything, but you had one inning where you had two errors. And that's when they scored the two runs. So what I'm trying to say is, I mean, Kent State's good, Tennessee played horrible. It's also February the 24th. So I think it's funny when people are freaking out,

5:05but good to see some adversity. Tennessee got hit, you know, punch in the mouth and now we'll head to Arlington. And I'm intrigued to see how Tennessee responds. With that, when could Kent become a state? No, still not a state. Still not a state. Still not a state. Good question, their quarry. Love that. Yeah, kind of a killer. Give us a South Carolina update. No, so Jimmy's on. Tell us, tell us about Alabama. I'm glad you didn't ask me about South Carolina. I think they played all the military things this past weekend. I'll watch South Carolina. I said, no. I'll watch. I'll watch. I'll watch quite a bit of that for. Where's Long, Jimmy? Oh, where's Long? And Chris was going for South Carolina because he's not for the troops. It looks impulmonary. Loves the troops. And he let Army win on Friday. And that's great from Paul. You know, I went through the game on Sunday. Founders is a beautiful park. It was a lot of fun to be back there. That's as the extent of what I'll say. Pitching, pitching hasn't been terrible,

6:06but they're not a good baseball team. I will take my time to also just give props to the rest of the SEC. I think Ole Miss, what Steven said was shocking about, is the pitching is not there because the pitching has been awesome for Ole Miss. It's been awesome for Texas. It's been awesome for a lot of teams that are hitting for Vanderbilt, moving that fence in, getting a little short portion right from 3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3. I mean, it's still, Lindsey Nelson of you there, Corey. It was, it was a lot of fun to watch. There's still a lot of good baseball in this conference. LSU looks really good. They just hit them all really well. They haven't really pitched as well. I think people thought they would, but there's still a lot of really good teams in this conference. I just, one day, one day will be one of the 12 teams in the top 25. It seems almost impossible not to be in it, but we found a way to do it. All right, Jimmy, quick update on Alabama. I mean, after dropping that first one, they've won seven in a row now. That's exactly right. I think I win in seven in a row after the opener shows there was definitely an overreaction to losing the opening game. You rip off seven in a row, but don't overreact seven in a row.

7:08They haven't beaten anyone very good. There's some real concern about how good this team might be offensively. I think the pitching's been as good or a little better, maybe than expected, but hitting the ball, they've hit it well against who they've played, but there's real concern about will they score against quality pitching and you've got quality pitching coming up even before you get to the ridiculous SEC schedule that I think the Dodgers and Yankees have been a little worried about, frankly. It's loaded. It's loaded. Quick Auburn update. Auburn got blasted by Cincinnati in the midweek. He kind of created a bunch of panic. What's going on? And then they went to Arlington and they beat two ranked teams and they also beat a Kansas State team whose resume was pretty solid going this weekend. So a three and no stretch for the Tigers over the weekend that really restored faith after that really surprised eight to nothing lost against Cincinnati. So starting pitching for Auburn, I think is going to be a strength for this club. That's a good time to,

8:08that's a good time, a good reminder. A yearly reminder early in the year that midweek is not real baseball. So let's all keep in mind midweek is not real baseball. And so you're going to drop one every now and again. But with the new roster limitations and all that, they're going to start treating it like real baseball. I feel like there's going to be some tweaks moving forward and those games obviously, you know, mean something. Well, and especially for teams that are going, like smaller teams that are going to SEC, a lot of times they'll put their best guy out there because it can help them. So it's an opportunity. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Who's been the biggest surprise? So far this season, I'm sorry, I'm sorry neighbors. You spoke first when I when I mentioned 12 out of 25. So in my head, we had already gotten to Arkansas. I'm so sorry of all the teams represented here. I believe your team's actually ranked the highest. I'm so sorry. Give us a quick part of our razor backs update. You can't even have enough where I can't talk about football. And it's like the sport that I am good at over the years. I don't know. Over it on our, I skipped over Marlar intentionally.

9:10And who got to him, we all see why that was the right decision. I did not, I did not mean to skip over you. I'm so I can't wait to email you back tonight. I can't. I bet you won't do it. I bet you, but more importantly, the Arkansas razor backs, they had a sweep over a mighty, mighty team over the weekend. I'm, you know, it's savior. I don't even know how much longer they had baseball. But either way, Arkansas is looking good because they are being put in positions that they got to try to figure their ways out of 100 eats have been the Saturday starter. He's got everything that he needs tools wise. He's just in his own head. But the rest of the pitching has been phenomenal. Heo Aloi, which is the Heo Aloi's younger brother. It's really stepped up. He had two walkoffs this past weekend. Wait, they're related. Yeah, can you believe that? Two of people name a lawyer related. That's wild. That's wild. Yeah. But yeah, that yet Camden Koziel hit for the cycle the other day too, which was really cool. So, Arkansas is getting it done. They're just still like everybody else figuring out their pitching and looking really great. We've got a midweek against an in-state rival of Arkansas state. But they still got some really good teams

10:10that they're going to be playing later down the stretch. Let's go. Arkansas is a state though. So, at least their name makes sense. That's what I got. Which chose. I got to everyone else, right? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Who's been the biggest surprise for the SEC so far? Yes, Chris Marler? Oklahoma. Oklahoma. I don't know what they need to do to move up. Great. We'll get to that in his thoughts. Why? Next, right here. On the SEC baseball squad. Yeah. Today's show brought to you by our friends at Mazda. Mazda's moving the game forward for those who showed there's more to the score than what's on the screen. Who am I picking on and calling on this week? John neighbors. Who's moving the game forward for Arkansas? Well, I mean, I just thought you'd skip over me. The shot is the people out. Yeah, right? Yeah, right. No, I'm giving it Camden Codial. Hit for a cycle. It's always a big deal. I don't care. It's even Armadillo. That's right. And Armadillo. He's got that Armadillo blood in him now. Yeah. So like that, Mazda puts the same passion into every model. Highlights make the real.

11:12What it took to get there makes it count. There's more to Mazda because there's more to you. Today's show all is also brought to you by our friends. And indeed, Chris Marlar, what is your favorite thing about our friends at Indeed? You're muted. Cory Burnt. What is your favorite thing about our friends from Indeed? They give you a $75 credit when you sign up for it to get your job that premium status it deserves. That's my favorite part. Yep. Stephen Willis, you got to think though, with Indeed, it probably still takes forever to hire someone. No, you can do it really quick. I mean, in the last minute that we've been talking, 27 people have been hired by using Indeed sponsor jobs. And that that's a pretty cool thing. Yeah, I think so. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now to support our shows by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. And like we just said, you get a $75 sponsored job credit once again, Indeed.com slash podcast. Today's show also brought to you by our friends

12:13at Fandall. Fandall is America's number one sportsbook. Chris Marlar, give us a line on Fandall. What do you like so much about the Fandall app? Oh, one, you can win tickets to the NBA finals. That's one, two. I made a blank ton of money on USA hockey all throughout the Olympics. I had a great time doing that. USA. Eat it, Canada. Quinn, you see his ghost. Yep, yep, absolutely. So head over to Fandall.com today. Thank you so much for making all of our shows your first list in every single day. Or maybe your second list. And this is a bonus edition of the show. This is the SEC baseball squad. Chris Marlar, you made a you wanted to talk about Oklahoma our sooner friends at sooner rather than later. Do you think they're the biggest surprise of the SEC so far? I mean, they were they were picked 14th in the SEC to start the year by the media. And the media is rarely wrong. And so 14th in the SEC and then to go undefeated to start the year, the thing for me is they went down to Arlington

13:13for the first week of the year. They win whatever first tournament that was because there's apparently 18 of them this year alone in Arlington. They do really well there. They've scored double digits in every single every single game. The pitching has been great. I mean, they haven't played anybody this week. They've played New Mexico, state, and cop and state. But on the weekend, they wanted us to say one of them is not true. This weekend, they sweep that series and win 57 to one on the combined three games of the weekend. So I think, especially about having the last week, you keep waiting to kind of come back down to earth. And again, with the the preseason expectations where they were going into the season, they've been really, really good. Is there an argue for Ole Miss being one of the biggest surprises so far? Steven, I thought you were going to interrupt Marlar and say, no, it's the Ole Miss Rebels. Well, I'm waiting to see until after this three game tournament in Houston. That'll tell us like, because Baylor is a pretty good program. Coastal Carolina obviously made it to the finals against LSU a year ago. Oklahoma State is a garbage program. So we won't even talk about them.

14:14But if Ole Miss can get through this week at 4 and 0, if they hit to that, all of a sudden with the way they're pitching the ball right now, I mean, Hunter Elliott starting off the rotation, K Townsend's unbelievable. And then they have a legitimate Sunday starter. That's going to be a big advantage. They actually got him from Missouri as props to them for not caring about baseball at all. But whenever you look at Will Liberty, I mean, against Missouri State, he completely shut them down seven strikeouts, one or two earned runs, something like that. I mean, just a really good performance by him. If Ole Miss can continue, they need to continue stacking these non-conference wins. They don't necessarily matter because as Caner said, it's not real baseball yet, but you need it because of the gauntlet that's going to be the SEC schedule on the road at Texas play Arkansas. I mean, all the usual suspects. So I think after this weekend, we will know if this Ole Miss baseball team is for real. Just as long as you guys don't make any stupid tic tocks or

15:15anything like that, just don't do that anymore. Any other surprises before we kind of look ahead to what's going on this weekend? Three, two, Jimmy, what's going on with Alabama this weekend? Well, this weekend there in a tournament in Texas sounds like with the rest of the league in Frisco, Texas, you got Iowa, Oregon, State, and Houston. So we're going to find out if Alabama really is struggling with the batter of what they've done. It's just a product of facing sort of mid-pitching. They've even got a mid-week this week at Southern Miss. That sounds like an NCAA regional type game. That's tricky, tough week for Alabama. Start with that mid-week at Southern Miss and then the tough weekend in Texas, just like everyone else in the league. Chris Marlar, quick South Carolina, up there. What do they have this weekend? It'll be long, you're not going to have any time constraints here, but they're playing Queens College on Thursday, not on Tuesday. No double header against Kings College, Zach, you know what I mean?

16:17Okay. Anyway, in the weekend, they're going to be playing Clemson, who I don't know if you've heard of. You know what State Queens College is from? I learned this over the basketball season with Carolina. Go with Carolina. Yeah, okay. Everyone wants to be a D2, what B? You used to be D2 in the South Atlantic conference where King is not going to play that hard. It's like, okay, you know everything about Queens College. Just go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. So anyway, back to what I was saying about this University of South Carolina baseball team. They're playing Clemson this weekend. Should be a lot of fun. Clemson fans noted garbage people. It's going to be, it's going to be the thing they do every year. They play one game at Clemson, one game at South Carolina, and then one game as a neutral. And, you know, I'll find a new way to get disappointed. Can I wait? Okay. Marler, Bout Clemson, one thing that you might not know about, they famously sign players, but don't actually have them sign contracts when you're too bad at the test match. Below the belt, and I support it. I support it. That was good. Yeah, Clemson catching strays. I love it. Eric Kane, what's up with the balls this weekend?

17:19Yeah, it must be nice to win things, Steven. I would know about that with my quarterback this past weekend. I didn't know it's out of shape. Yeah, great weekend. Yeah, Tennessee loses a series, non-con, Joey Aguilar can't play. I'm excited to see how Tennessee's going to respond. I mean, there's so much talent on this roster, right? I mean, Tony Vatelo, Josh Elander, put it together. There's the top ranked class that made it to campus. But again, last weekend, you hit 135 with runners on. You hit 125 with runners in scoring position, going to Arlington, going to the state of Texas, along with everybody else, which is all you'll get in Airbnb. And I'm going to play number one UCLA on Friday. So really looking forward to that. Arizona State, which is a really good team, is a state. Is a state? I'm going to play that on Saturday and then Virginia Tech on Sunday. So how does Tennessee respond? You're going to fold over. Don't think so. Can you get two or three? Let's see. And then one more week in against right state. And then it says he's time on a state. John neighbors, you were laughing during the first part of that. John laughed.

18:21Yeah, you were holding back some laughter. No, I was just any time I hear about the new future raise your back head coach or baseball. I get a little bit tickled as all when you mentioned Tony Vatelo. It's just going to be awesome to see. But no, it was obviously because I'm not like it's. It kind of reminds me, and I'm wondering if Tennessee's going to go kind of the route that A&M did last year in baseball, where they lost Ross Nagel. And they had this really talented team. Let's not even talk about that. Yeah, just saying, just saying that there's a possibility to happen there. Let's do. Yeah, but because it's, you know, a lot of times it's why all of this is the coach that the players want. Yeah, sometimes the players are dumb kids and don't know. So, you know, maybe this is the way it could be. All right. What's Arkansas got this weekend? I'm going to make sure I do not skip over you again. I'm so sorry. Yeah, you better not. Arkansas State in the midweek, yes, the Red Wolves, the fighting butch Joneses, you know, whatever they want to call them. They're, yeah, they're going to be coming into town. Do they ever howl at y'all like Georgia fans, market people do do Arkansas State fans ever howl? They're in Jonesboro.

19:21No one goes there anyway. So no one would know what they did. So, but yeah, Jay Boogie's not great. But either way, you got that going on in this weekend, you have U.T. Arlington. Of course, the players are playing. They got a few more non-conference. But they're on a 18 game home stretch. Like they do not play outside of ball marker stadium until SEC play. They're the competition. Yeah. Well, that and also it's just, you know, it's a beautiful ballpark that people like to come to. So there's that, too, as well. But yeah, so it's going to be should we get your game, go to Walmart, a lot of stuff to do there. A lot of chicken places. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You can talk down to Walmart by guarantee you went there probably today. So yeah. John, you ungrateful POS. Yeah. Oh, listen, it's it's a beautiful thing this time of year. But still, Arkansas is in good shape. I just need this. It sucks because everyone's just like, like it's up when the postseason hits because that's the only thing that matters. Yeah.

20:21I hold home. He had a sweep. That's great. No one cares. Man, you can turn anything negative. It's unbelievable. Steven Willis host of locked on all this, what, what should we expect for the Rebels this weekend? Oh, this is the, I guess the step up in competition that you've been waiting on with Baylor and coastal Carolina, like I said, Ohio State, which is a state garbage program. But two out of three should be the expectation of what's going on. We'll know after this weekend, how for real Ole Miss is, I have gotten no less than five emails and DMs asking, hey, Ole Miss is number one in the RPI and it's like, no, don't even look at that for a month. Come on. They're collecting. I'll be all over that. I'll be over you. It's like, yes, they're number one in the RPI, but you don't know anything yet. But to be honest, I didn't know they actually kept RPI this early. Yes, sure. They released later. I just love my God, Steven reference, you know, talking things over on email, that was great. That was awesome. That was so nice. Yeah. Cory Burton.

21:21What was Vandy God this weekend? Well, Vandy's got a midweek against Evansville to get some things right before they head out to Vegas to take on UC Irvine, Oregon and Arizona, Austin, Nye and Connor Fennel, two pitchers that I'm really excited about that are going to head off the weekend and then Nate Taylor is pitching real well as well. He's looking to be the Sunday guy. So we'll see how they can stack up against real competition. Can they continue to hit the ball well? Can they continue this hot streak that they're on and can they sweep this tournament out there in the out there in Las Vegas? All right. Auburn, they host West Georgia for some midweek action and then they host Nebraska for a three game series at Plainsman Park. Yeah. As opposed to East Georgia, which is Auburn. West Georgia played D2 as well. How many of these D2 schools got bucked up? West Georgia would be, I assume West Georgia is very close to us. It's very good. It's something. I was. Yeah. I thought Auburn was West Georgia. Yeah, that's the joke.

22:22In February, RPI is really pretty irrelevant. Yes, it is. Absolutely. But that doesn't. Not kidding. It took me two whole minutes to come up with that though. Yeah. I could tell you a little. I didn't know what exactly was. But it came out piping hot. Two minutes. Two minutes. In another thing. All right. The broadcast school is really paying off. All right. I think. I think there were a lot of four other say one more thing before we're all done. Zach, you look great. We'll write an email to you tonight. It's all got a few more drinks before I do it. Longer the better. It's a really good idea. For Corey Burton of Lockdown, Vandy, Stephen Willes of Lockdown, Ole Miss, John neighbors of Lockdown, Razorbacks, Eric Kane of Lockdown, Vols and Jimmy Stein, cohost of Lockdown, Bama, just kidding. Chris Marler, host of Lockdown Gamecocks here as well. I'm Zach Black, we have Lockdown, Auburn. This has been the SEC Baseball Squad. Lockdown. Do not. They've featured in that. Don't do it.