UNC's Commitment to Baseball Success w Scott Forbes | Inside Carolina | College Baseball

0:00Welcome in to another this week in UNC baseball. I'm Tommy Ashley. That's Grace Nuget. That is Scott Forbes. In fact, I'm going to put Scott Forbes in the middle between Grace and I. Shout out to Johnny T-shirt and JohnnyT-shirt.com. And go to Inside Carolina sign up for your premium membership. There's a lot of information you might want to know about here with Carolina baseball, basketball, and everything. Speaking of information, Coach Forbes today, it dropped that you've been extended. As head coach of North Carolina with a new contract and all that, just how does that come about during the season? And also, how does that make you feel that you have the full administrative support from Carolina? I mean, it's humbling number one, because I never dreamed I would be in this position. Like I tell our guys, it's an honor and a privilege to wear the Carolina uniform. I'm always going to believe that. Never take it for granted. Like you just said, too, though, my favorite quote

1:01that I keep on everything from Nick Sabin's success continues only at the commitment to success remains in place. And we're in a new phase of college athletics. I still firmly believe, though, culture and standards they matter. But I saw a really good interview by basketball coach Kim Remember, who was during the final four that said coaches help wing games. Obviously, I still believe the players win the games. The coaches help. But administration wins national championships. And you have to have the commitment in every area to potentially win a national championship and to be competitive every single year. I've always, this has been at UNC. Even young, I got to see Dean Smith. And I always felt like Carolina basketball was right there, right there, right there. And I hope one day, if I coached it, maybe I could be a part of something like that. So it's very thankful that everybody here, I mean, obviously, Bob and Steve and our chancellor

2:04and donors board trusted everybody. But still, to me, Tommy ingraces the players. I mean, in my staff that I, I mean, they're phenomenal. They're the ones that make me look so good with the players, make us all good. And they put in the work. They win the games. I played. I know. And I'm just thankful for them. I've got, that's probably been the coolest thing of when something like this happens, the former players that reach out. And they're excited. So when they're excited, I'm excited. We're doing a 2006, 20 year reunion, the Georgia Tech weekend. I was fortunate I was raised by great parents that raised me to don't ever forget where you came from. And don't get too big for your bridges, as they say. And then I've surrounded myself that don't let me do that. And Mandy and the girls, like their baseball supporters, thank goodness, or we wouldn't be where we are. But really, for me, it's just the players that have allowed us

3:07to be here and the support that, from everybody else, it wants us to keep having a chance to hopefully get the Omaha. So I know how you're going to answer this. Grace is going to ask you some baseball centric questions here shortly. But do you personally feel pressure to win as a head coach? I don't from outside, within my own self, in my own brain, yes, that's a blessing and a curse from everything that I read and understand when you're a coach. It's just part of it, I think. I don't think you can be a successful coach. If you don't put pressure on yourself to win, I don't think. But I also know you can't let it be everything. You have to understand that, as Bill Walsh's book says, the outcomes will take care of themselves or winning will take care of itself. You have to do things like you feel like a right within the program from the standards and the coach or standpoint and trying to get these guys to obviously maximize their

4:08potential and be the best players they can be, because we get paid to do that. But I don't look at it that way. I look at it like you've never seen a U-Haul behind a hearse, and when Jake Nat reaches out to me or anybody, former player, I saw Dustin Acley, who was up at Notre Dame, sitting all the games freezing cold. By the way, that's why we got so many hits, because Acley showed up. Any time he shows up, we're going to get 10 extra hits. I just think Tommy, it's a slippery slope, and you'll be miserable if that's the only thing that you think matters, because it's not. And at the end of the day, you have to recognize and accept that if you don't win the whole thing, if you're not the last team standing, it is what it is people are going to say what they say. And that's really hard to do to win that last game. But I'm not going to lie to you and tell you, I don't sleep way better when we win, because I just hate

5:09to lose, and the game starts, I want to win, for sure. And I want us to win. And our players to win. I'm going to go back a little bit in time. You have Campbell in, what, like, five hours, 8 p.m. game. Yeah, yeah, like that. It's your first time since 2013, sweeping your first to ACC Road series. What are your overall impressions playing the double header on Saturday, and then the game on Sunday from your team in South Bend? You know, it's funny you're saying that, because I've been writing down some things and working on some things that we didn't do well at Notre Dame that I feel like we're going to need to do well to keep getting better. But it was nice when we got there. But it looked like it was going to rain, so we ended up working out here. But then it dropped like crazy during the night with storms. And Coach Diffle made the right decision. It was brutal Friday. But it worked out for us. We bundled up. We got over there. We practiced. We took ground balls, did some defense, and we hit inside the cages.

6:12But it's a hard place to play. A lot of times, because it's very windy, and it can be cold. The turf is pretty true, which helps. But it's hard to play outfield there, really hard, because if the wind's blowing out, you're playing deep. And then everything's going to fall on the front of you, and then it bounces. You don't want to bounce over your head. And there runs scored at Notre Dame. So the biggest thing is making your team understand you're never out of a game, and no lead is safe. So if you're up 10 to 2, treat it like it's 4 to 2. Because the pot flies a double or a home run most of the time if it's hit on the barrel. So to go up there, go down. There are Friday stars as good as you're going to face in the country. DeCara pitched great. I think you pushed out 7 or 9. You got a matchy guy like that, and DeCara did that, kept us in it. We kept chipping. We found a way. But when you get three winds, I mean, you dissect it no matter what, but it's hard to do. It's hard to win series. But I was proud of our guys winning the series in the double header.

7:13And we get behind. And sometimes you can get content, we've already won the series. Dang it, this is not our day. They just knew. And they believed in what we had talked about, like, hey, man, like it. We get a walk, a hit by pitch. Somebody's going to hit up on the gap. Somebody's going to hit up all out. So just do what we do best. And that's fine your way on base. Don't try to win the game in one swing of the bat. And they did a really good job of that. And overcame some things like losing the ball in the sun and they had a three run home run. So that was the thing that I like the most with our team is we found ways to win. And we found different ways to win than we have. Most of the time it's been pitching a defense. We still played really good defense for the most part. But we gave up runs and we found a way to manufacture runs. Gavin said after the Louisville series, he said after the second game or the offense wasn't able to play to run it all. He said, the pitchers did so well. And it just felt hard as a hitter to not be able to back them up.

8:13And it seems like kind of since that Louisville game and Owen talks about it a little bit on Tuesday, this offense, like you said, is found a way. They have like an all-gas mentality. Even if they're scoring three in the night, setting to just keep the other team basically away. How have you seen this offense really find a way in recent weeks and not stop, not get complacent at ending five with the lead and just keep piloting it on? I mean, I want to give credit for credits, dude. Coach Wersen, Coach Jackson, I mean, they spend a lot of time on these guys on approach, controlling the strike zone, know your strengths, approach is very important as a hitter. High as a head coach remind all of our players that compete factor has to be first over everything else, though. And sometimes you can lose sight of that when you're working on your swing or you're thinking about it having gotten a hit. But the strength of our offense has been controlling the strike zone and finding a way to get on base. We just haven't really been driving the ball. We weren't driving the ball this early last year either, but just reminding the guys, like you know that you're gonna start dropping the ball. Which we're not gonna do is start dropping the ball

9:14if you go out of the zone and you don't just know what we do well. So keep doing what we do well. And I mean, and Grace, the other thing is like, you know, sometimes I tell the guys, you gotta just, you're gonna get stuffed. The guy from Louisville is gonna stuff us. You know, Jake Nap comes in here, he's gonna stuff us. But if our guy, you just keep playing, keep playing. And then Louisville all of a sudden, you know with a great example, two pitches, two outs, Tyler Howell walks. Next thing you know, we got five runs. That's just the game of baseball. So try to take some of that pressure to off the hitters, you know, they feel like we've got to score 10 runs in the first four innings. That's just not baseball. And you just keep playing and playing defense and making plays. And hopefully you can mix in a big inning. But they do such a good job with those guys down there. And I always feel like here, our offense is, you know, kind of tend to get going more in the second half, which should be the case in hitting.

10:17So hopefully that's what we will continue to do. And the good thing about our offense so far is the distribution has been from all over. And that's a good thing, you know, we're not relying on one person to always carry this. You talk about approach. And Tommy and I talked about this in the box at some point, but swinging at the first pitch. There's a few games where it seems like there was just a ton of swings at the first pitch and be rollovers would be flyouts. Maybe not the greatest swing decisions from your offense. But it seems as they keep going, that's evolved a little bit. Is that swing that you guys track? And how do you have those conversations of, okay, you might see, yeah, the first pitch you see might be your pitch. But is that the one you swing at? How do you have those conversations about those swing decisions, especially when you're looking at situational hitting? Yeah, a lot of it is the picture you're facing. So, I mean, I wish people could see behind the scenes. How much time and it's put in, you know,

11:18on both sides, you know, Coach Allen, Coach Gaines working together to scout Campbell and Coach, in the videos better, you can do it quicker, but you're looking for everything. So, let's just use the ride out for example. You know, our approach against the guy like that is, hey, he's gonna strike us out. And he pounds the strikes on. So, we have to be on go from the second we walk out there. What pitch wrong go with? Okay, we'll talk about it. Probably the fast ball because it's elite and we know where we're gonna stand on the pleasure right hand or where you're gonna stand on the place, the left hander. Whereas if you face a guy that is more of a power arm with average command, okay, well, it's okay to get the count deep. Or if you face a guy that doesn't have a wipeout strikeout pitch, it's okay to go to strikes, but when you face a guy like right now, just know already he's gonna strike some guys out. So, what we're trying to do is be on time, get a single and then somebody get a ball in the air

12:20and we get two runs. Or, you know, get on, still a base, put them over, score a while pit, it's like Jake Schaffner did. So, it all is, every pitcher, you know, at start of the night, we're ready, we'll be ready for them, but in every reliever that we think will throw. And even maybe the Friday starter because I could bring him in potentially. We have a sheet that has, okay, if you had a pitch hitter, who would you pick on that pitch hitter? But also, what's the approach? What are we looking for? And we go from there. But rarely do you want to be on take mode. Like, that's just not something you get defensive and then you're in trouble. You know, you got to be on the fastball and adjust from there. So, let me ask the question out here, a ton said pitcher walks a couple guys or walks a guy on four pitches. Your batter comes up, rolls over the first pitch. What's the mindset there? Is that your own go mindset that you're talking about or is that? Yeah, the principal pitcher too.

13:22Tommy, and that's where I come in, you know, I can give the take, but I also love the 3-0 green light. And I think it's one of the best pitches to hit. So, we train both of those. The take is more, you know, if a guy I think is command really scattered and it's a big situation, you know, I'm probably gonna say, okay, he just threw four in a row. We got the bases low in no hours. Let's just look at one. On the reverse side of that, it's early in the game. I know the starter. For some reason, he's walked this guy on four pitches, but this dude's 95 to 98 with a nasty slider. We better stay on go because the first pitch right down the middle may be the only one that you can hit. So, that's kind of how I approach is a good thing kind of like taking a pitcher out. You know, I like putting as much pressure on that pitcher, but if the misses are that bad and the umpires on is tied, you're gonna be more, hey, that's making them throw us a strike. But the percentages are the percentages.

14:24You know, pitchers wanna get ahead in the count. And they wanna get ahead in the count, oh, oh. So, you got, oh, oh, pitch, that 2-0 pitch, that 3-1, that 3-0 pitchers are literally a lot of times trying to throw the ball right down the middle. And as a hitter, that's what you're hunting on the stake, which is down the middle. Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic because you hear that more than anything. Why'd you swing at that? Yeah, and throwing a strike yet. So, good explanation there. Talking about Scott Forbes here on this week's UNC baseball. Let me ask you this. You said you were writing down things you did wrong this past weekend. What's on that list? Some things that don't show up in the bot score. Just some base running things that stuck out to me that we need to be better at, some reads. The game is a matter of inches. And if you don't make the right read in your slide into home, it's that close to being safe and being out. The right positioning in certain situations

15:26as a defender, you have the pitch calm. You don't wanna give the pitch away, but you gotta anticipate a little bit more on where the ball's gonna be hit when you hear certain pitches. And I'm glad those things, when you face teams like we're facing this week that try to pressure you as much as you can, it helps amplify it even more. Like we have to do these things well, or Campbell's gonna try to run all over us, or Boston College's gonna try to run all over. So kind of like Louisville as well, but just little things that we just have to get better at. And especially about our running game against lefties, I think we can be better at getting the extra base, some things like that. One of the things that popped, okay. One of the things that popped out to me from the weekend watching was Camsey Grace. Yes. He goes from kind of like the witness protection program we haven't seen him. And then throws back to back days, and he looked phenomenal.

16:27And I mean, I've watched, I've watched Cam since he started, and it looked like obviously Coach, you're gonna know more than anyone, but his velocity is down from the very high level that we saw the 97's last year, but his command. And especially the command of his off speed, just looked absolutely nasty. How have you seen him A evolve into some of maybe those off speed pitches, and then control his pitches so he can go out and throw like he did in those two games? You know, Cam and his defense had a little setback with his arm, so he was down like five days, but we worked on the coach games with him. Really, they've revamped his delivery zone, which is a big change. Like a hitter taking his hands from down here and putting them up here to be able to repeat it, because if you can't command the ball, no matter how hard he throw it. Cam's ultra competitive, he's ultra coachable.

17:30We thought he could be an X factor for us, and he had really started to show that in the lives. He looked confident, he's ultra competitive. And we just felt like he was now more able to repeat his delivery, which is gonna give him better command. And he showed that, which was huge for us. He stood out in Cam Pageant, he's had a velocity jump up the 96, he had a pitch at the top of his own. So we need to keep creating that depth. It's gonna be important. And that was, you know, again, I don't care what the scores are if we win, but when you give up more runs or you're playing in an environment like that, you got to pitch more guys potentially. And that can be a good thing, especially if you still win the game and you get guys out there that, okay, we can put him in this role, we can use him in this role, we can not use him in this role. So Cam's gonna be a big X factor for us tonight. Hopefully he is recovering good. I'll check within the day when he throws and he'll be available tonight. At what point when Coach Gaines revamped

18:30something with a pitcher, do you guys decide, it's time to put him back out there and at what situation, like what was the, what was the thought process with sending Cam out in South Bend? And kind of what was that? We showed him lives. We do lives a lot of time. You had a pitch on Monday, live pitchers get on our mound, just like a game, track man's own hitters, Barry Hargett, McGinnis, Sowers, guys haven't had a lot of the bats that, we need ready to come off the bench. You can have Ron Kales who doesn't have as many of the bats as a starter or everyday player. And that's what you go about. Talk about practice is important, it is. I haven't seen players that can't do it in practice because they do it in the game. So he's shown better command, elite stuff. And that's why he got the opportunity. That's a really good offense, but based on what we've seen, he's the best matchup right here. And you hope that we'll carry over and that was so good to see.

19:31And he's growing mentally too. I could tell when he came out, he's got his confidence back. He's not gonna be perfect by any means. But we all know how fragile confidence can be and that really, I was excited for him because you want everybody to do well, but you can't give a player confidence. I think you can take it away, but they still have to figure that out themselves. When you go to the mound, obviously, when you're out there, you usually come out. I think two times, maybe two times this year, but three times maybe max in the last few years that you've gone out there and not pulled a pitcher. When gains goes out there, we see, you see, they're fired up gains or settled down gains. We kind of joke about it in the press box, is this anger gains or is this commotion gains? But when you decide to leave a pitcher in and then something bad happens, is there second guessing or you just roll with it? Not anymore, not the longer you coach.

20:33I'm not if I don't like that. Oh, what a shit it could have. You know, at the end of the day, you have to accept that as a head coach. You got to make the decision and we're in a big, because you're going to ask the opinions. Obviously, you get those, but then you have to decide, hey, we had a situation in Notre Dame to intentionally walk this guy. It puts the, go ahead and run on the base. One person thinks we should, one person thinks we shouldn't. I mean, the clock's ticking, he's getting ready to hit. You need to put him on or you don't. To answer your question about coach gains, he's very level headed. He's very strategic with his words. He knows our player's relationship wise, which allows him to know what buttons to push. I think he's going to be a phenomenal head coach. And he's intimidating too when he needs to be. Not only is he a big dude, he's just kind of got that intimidating hit factor if he needs it.

21:33He's got some presence. So I don't even ask him what he said. I trust him, and he walks out there. He knows if I walk out there, it's more like a time out if I'm not fit. We know when I'm going to take a guy out. That's pretty quick. And there are some times where I'm not sure. And I think about it on the way out there. Try to make a decision and go from there, but he's really good at those mal visits. It was the last time, I think Jake was probably, has done it. But it was the last time you went out there, dad said I'm taking somebody out and you let them talk you out of it. And was it the right choice if they did? Yeah, pie, Jake. Yes, and yeah, I think so. I do feel like as a coach, you coach long enough, you have key questions, and there's certain answers that tell you a lot, especially with a starter. Could be in between, how do you feel? I'm going back out or just getting loose,

22:37or any hesitation, you might have to be like, hey, I need to make that decision for him, because nobody wants to say I don't want to go back out. When you go out there in that situation, every pitcher is going to want to stay in. Just try to read the body, how fatigued they look, what's the feel for the guys behind them? Those type of things, and then you just make the decision. And I respect when guys try to talk me into leaving them in, and then I tell them at the end of the day, I'm going to make the decision, so you've got to deal with it either way. But they make you look good when you do leave them in, and then even when you don't work out, obviously it is what it is. Saying on pitching, interesting week for you guys. You have the double header, and then you play on Thursday. I know you've talked about that you like, I think you like the five days of recovery for one of your starters. Jason has less than that. How do you work with Terry Joe with Jason to make sure coming off fantastic performance

23:37to get him ready for Thursday? Honestly, I'm so old school, I like four days. I think that allows the pitcher to stay in a rhythm better. It's a lighter bullpen, it's plenty of rest. So I feel great about Jason on those four days. If you manage your staff the whole year in a good way, and they're not just run into the ground, I feel like you can ask more of them late, including three days. I mean, just do the research for Major League Baseball. Injuries aren't up because of that. Injuries are up more because of the training, the way that just different things that go into effect. But I think I feel good about him doing that. I feel like his pitch count was respectable. His delivery was really good. He was in control the whole time. We were able to throw our generous donors to get back. So he's able to bank up his sleep

24:38and not be at an airport driving on a bus to Chicago and get home at 4 a.m. We got home at 9 p.m. So I feel good about it. And the same thing, everybody's off one day rest, but I think some of that stuff's overrated. And it's good for these guys to be able to adjust and be able to do that because they need to be able to do that in the post season. I'm gonna give you one more baseball one and then I got a fun one for you. When looking ahead a little bit to Boston College, they've got a lot of soft-tossing lefties. And we've talked with you that sometimes that can be a little bit difficult for the offense. We talked about it with Shay, that you said once, one of the number one guys that you like to get is a lefty with crazy pitchability because your teams have, sometimes just North Carolina in general and a lot of people can struggle against them. So I'll be in this lineup really adapt and evolve and what are you guys gonna do looking for

25:39to sing that many of something that you aren't maybe the most fantastic as compared to when you face Jamie Arnold and Tyson Weatherspoon two of the best pitchers in the college class last year who have that really high velocity and just get them out of the game super quick. The good thing, I looked at that on the play on the way back. You get more of a storm when you haven't faced something and one thing we have faced is left in the pitching probably more so than at any point in the season. So the better, the more you see it, the better you get at it. I think three weeks ago, I don't know, we could have been hitting two-twenty against lefties on the season. Now we're up to 262. So the more you see something, the more you see different looks. You know, the kin of manuals and Shay sprays and they're all Americans and they went for a reason. They are kind of quote salt-telts in today's world. They can still touch a 90, they can go in and their changeups are stupid good. Changeups just, if you got a guy like that, it can be a tough day and you've got to match them.

26:39So again, the most important thing is like we tell our guys, we got to match them, we got to match them on the mound and we have to make plays. Look at us on the road, we play great defense. So if you do that, then the offense will get a chance to strike. We might not even hit the lefty, but we might hit the righty, they go to out of the pin. I do think, though, the more we face and the better we've gotten, our approach has gotten better. They've seen both sides, some hearted-throwing lefties, some guys have cutters, some guys that have changeups. And our offense is also balanced. And the great thing is our lefties are doing a better job against lefties than they were early. So I don't worry, I don't get as concerned about it anymore. I think it's hard no matter what. You know, I still, you face a guy like Roddell, like I still rather face the soft toss and lefty than that guy. You know, so it'll be tough either way. They're good pitchers, they're all,

27:41they have command and they can pitch. Well, I know you love basketball. We're chatting about them before. Big weekend coming up, fun of four. What is your favorite basketball game that you have watched? I mean, the dude game this year was up there. I mean, I was there at great seats. I don't know if I've been at a game in person, that electric and then the shot, I mean, like it was like unbelievable. So that game to me, I was at the one two where Duke Beatis, the last second shot, who was that one year? Or who? Austin Rivers. Yeah. Can't talk about that. Well, I always talk about that like, oh, dead silence. But man, I just thought, I mean, I watched or been at, that one was the best one I've been at.

28:42I also went to Cameron one time when Hans Broe was here and we absolutely just whipped their tails, which was phenomenal. After we beat Duke and baseball, that was a double good thing. But on TV, man, I don't know, I love sports, but I will go without this year. Seth Trimble draining that three from endists. Not a bad way to end it. Bunch more questions, but you got a game to play. I mean, I can't believe you're gonna go coach a game rather than talk to us, but I certainly get it. That's head coach Scott Forbes. That's Grace Nugin. I'm Tommy Ashley. Shout out to Johnny T shirt. Shout out to everybody that pays attention. Appreciate it, coach. Yeah, get, we need to fan, we need you down the stretch. Thank y'all. Yep.