I am extremely disappointed with how the season ended and I am disappointed that we have had to scuffle so much to even get to where we are. I guess the good thing is we are talking about scuffling to get to a championship.

I know the team is disappointed too. But I do think that there are some good teaching points from this regular season for our team and I expect that they will take this with them into the offseason when that time comes.

One of the first is take care of your business against teams you need to take care of business against. We should be able to start our JV and beat Holy Cross.

Another one is when you have a lot of success, you are going to get everyone's best and therefore you have have to elevate your play to match the other team's intensity. I think we learned that the hard way against LSU and Ole Miss this year. I expect different results next year from us against those two teams in particular.

If you do those first two things, then you won't have to rely on someone like Texas A&M or Auburn to take care of business for you. So, the other lesson is to put ourselves in a position to control our own destiny. And you do that by winning.

Things were not all bad. We should be a two seed this year. I think we had a tough situation because of injuries and some guys not being able to step up and some defensive issues at catcher- but we still managed to find a way to be playing for the West on the last day of the season. Compare that to Cohen's first two years. At the end of Cohen's second year, I was hoping we could find a way to .500 in the SEC and have a chance to be a 2 seed.

Our pitching has been very good at the end here. The only thing I see that we need to do is SHUT DOWN Preston Brown. We need to quit hoping that he's going to magically come back to his early season form. He has an injury and he needs to get better. I don't care if he gets in the bullpen and looks like the second coming of Roger Clemens- we need to shut him down. The thing that is encouraging about our pitching to me is we will likely have at least three seniors on our staff next year- Fitts who I expect to continue to be better and go deeper into games, Ross, and Luke Laster who has really impressed me and keeps getting better and better. I think Woodruff likely comes back- and as disappointing as he was this year, he has made strides. I think it's very reasonable to believe that there's a good chance he could finally reach his potential next year and might even be the ace. I think there is a good chance that Holder comes back- and that would be huge especially since it appears as if he has kind of re-invented himself into a possibly even nastier pitcher. I think Preston and Paul Young are wild cards at this point- but if they come back healthy they could be huge. I'm also hoping that Myles Gentry will step it up next year as well. I'm interested to see what JUCO pitcher Daniel Brown gives us next year.

As far as catcher- Gavin Collins should improve. He needs to become an asset as opposed to being a liability defensively- and he will get there. With him it's more about getting reps than anything. The staff should be more comfortable with him as well. And then we have two seniors backing him up in Randolph and Cody Walker. Chase Vallot is a draft risk at this point- but if he comes on board, he could certainly have an impact.

Wes Rea had a bad day today and he has had a disappointing year. He has also had many more good days. If he comes back next year- I think he will be an asset. If he doesn't, we are going to have a hole to fill at first base. We have some candidates like Humphreys, Garner, Rooker, etc. But right now if I had to choose- give me Rea back for a fifth year. Matthew Britton seems to get better and better every weekend. I think he could be really good next year and he will also be a senior.

Seth Heck has been solid and the only question is if we will have to move him to second or keep him at SS? He's hitting around .280 and I expect him to be even better next year. John Holland is a question mark, but he at least has ACC experience and started for a very good Florida State team, so he's maybe a smaller question mark than normal. Replacing Pirtle will be tough, but I think Holland can come close.

The outfield kind of depends on what Wes Rea does because I think if Rea comes back, we move Reid Humphreys to RF. I expect him to progress against RH pitching. Cody Brown is going to play and has done some good things. I hope Vickerson progresses like his brother did- Nick had a rough JR year at times before being pretty solid as a senior. I think Jacob Robson is a wild card. He had a nerve injury in his elbow that has pretty much ended his sophomore season. I think he is actually more talented than CT.

I think Garner will play some at DH and will give us a more traditional DH than what we have normally had to do this year. If we get Vallot, I think he will DH a good bit also.

Offensively we will be better- how do I know this? Because the seams are changing and because we are going to have a ton of seniors. Which means we will have experience. Look at Ole Miss this year offensively and compare them to Ole Miss last year. Experience in baseball usually = success. I expect us to have more power next year because Collins, Humphreys, and Garner are going to be further along. Add in Britton too. And that should help a guy like Wes Rea and give him some protection in the lineup. Even our worst case scenario with Rea leaving would still mean that we have at least two seniors on the infield, and at a bare minimum at least one in the outfield. And then we are going to have juniors at one of the middle infield spots, and third year sophomores at DH and CF. We may have to get a JUCO OF if Rea leaves or a JUCO first baseman because right now our worst case scenario in the outfield is Cody Brown and Vickerson- and then we may have to hope that Swinarski is ready which we don't know at this time. So, I imagine if for no other reason than depth purposes we will try to find a JUCO 1B/OF.

Regardless- with a senior laden pitching staff and a veteran team behind them, we should have a very good year next year. Unless we just have an absolute killer SEC schedule.