Newly-hired Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon drawing rave reviews
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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — For the second straight year, Alabama will introduce a new head baseball coach as newly-hired Brad Bohannon is set to be formally announced Monday as the 32nd manager in program history.
If the immediate reaction to the hire is any indication, the Crimson Tide won’t have to worry about naming No. 33 for quite some time.
* Alabama names Brad Bohannon head baseball coach
Bohannon, who was hired Thursday, is currently still serving as an assistant for Auburn in the Tallahassee Regional. When he does complete his cross-state journey to Tuscaloosa, he will bring with him 14 years of SEC experience as well as plenty of expectations.
“I think it’s a great hire,” said Teddy Cahill, a national writer for Baseball America. “(Alabama athletics director) Greg Byrne, his previous two baseball coaching hires have been incredibly successful when you look at John Cohen at Mississippi State and Jay Johnson at Arizona. I have a lot of trust in Byrne that if he did a search he was going to find somebody good, and I think that’s exactly what he did.”
While Alabama will be Bohannon’s first head coaching job, the longtime assistant is no stranger to success. He was named the American Baseball Coaches Association and Baseball America National Assistant Coach of the Year in 2015, his last season at Kentucky, after 12 years working to turn around the Wildcats' program. This season, in his second year at Auburn, he helped the Tigers (36-24) vastly improve from a 22-33 record in 2016.
Alabama will hope that trend continues as Bohannon looks to take over for Greg Goff, who coached the Tide to its fewest wins since 1980 with a 19-34-1 record in his lone season in charge.
So what will make Bohannon a different hire than Goff? For one, they come from vastly different coaching backgrounds.
Goff came to Alabama after serving as head coach for three smaller programs — Louisiana Tech, Campbell and Montevallo. At each of his previous stops, Goff had resurrected losing programs, most recently coaching Louisiana Tech to its first NCAA Tournament in 2016 while ending a 29-year drought for the Bulldogs.
Bohannon started his coaching career as an assistant at Wake Forest from 2001-02 before spending 12 years at Kentucky from 2004-15. During his time with the Wildcats, a combined 69 student-athletes were chosen in the Major League Baseball draft or signed as a free agent to play professional baseball. After joining Auburn, he helped the Tigers to a No. 16 recruiting class in 2015 and a No. 9 recruiting class in 2016.
Despite not having Goff's head coaching experience, Bohannon had the opportunity to surround himself with quality head coaches. At Kentucky, he worked under current Mississippi State athletic director John Cohen from 2004-08 and current Mississippi State pitching coach Gary Henderson from 2009-16. While at Auburn, he coached under Butch Thompson, who won the 2014 Baseball America and American Baseball Coaches Association National Assistant Coach of the Year while at Mississippi State.
Cahill said that familiarity with the conference along with the wealth of knowledge acquired from other coaches should prove more valuable than head coaching experience itself.
“I think what you’re getting this time around is a guy with a lot of experience competing in the SEC, with recruiting SEC players and I think he understands what it really takes to be successful in the SEC,” Cahill said.
Cahill believes that success will also hinge on who Bohannon brings in to round out his staff. Fellow Baseball America writer Michael Lananna reported Thursday that former Tennessee head coach Dave Serrano could possibly be brought on as a pitching coach. Serrano has taken two different teams to the College World Series — UC Irvine (2007) and Cal State Fullerton (2009) — but resigned after this past season after failing to take the Volunteers to the NCAA Tournament for six straight years.
Despite serving as a head coach the past 13 seasons, Serrano might be open to taking an assistant role in order to get his career back on track.
Mississippi State set the precedent for such a move this season, hiring former LSU assistant Andy Cannizaro as head coach while bringing in Henderson as its pitching coach.
“I think it would make a lot of sense to bring in a guy who has coached in the SEC, has a ton of experience being a pitching coach and has had really successful pitching staffs over the years,” Lananna said. “I think as much experience as you can bring in is going to be huge.”
Along with putting together his staff, Bohannon will need to make up for lost time in recruiting. Although, as previously stated, that’s been his forte throughout the years.
Much of Auburn’s success this season comes from a 2016 recruiting class which featured nine JUCO signees. It will be interesting to see if Bohannon takes on that approach while trying to rebuild the Tide for next season. Either way, his reputation as an elite recruiter suggests he should be able to spot and bring in talent right away.
Alabama currently has 11 high school signees, according to Baseball America.
“When we talked to people about him, it’s clear that he out-hustles a lot of people,” Cahill said. “When you look at the makeup of his classes, especially at Kentucky, it’s all over the country.”
Whether that hustle will translate to wins right away is yet to be seen. Although, given Bohannon’s track record it wouldn’t be surprising to see an instant impact.
“Doing it in a year is tough, but it’s not impossible,” Cahill said. “He made may need a year to dig out. He’s not going to be 19-34-1. I’d be very surprised if that happened again.”