It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. just no ads. There's also a members only group chat for fans of your team. Plus a lot more. You can check it out by tapping the everyday or club link in the show notes. The 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 Locked On 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. Hurt feelings and thin skin are prohibited. Squad up. You're 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 Locked On Vandy. Steven Willis, host of Locked On Ole Miss. John Neighbors, host of Locked On Razorbacks. Eric Kane, host of Locked On Vols. Jimmy Stein, co-host of Locked On Bama. 12 of the, I'm just kidding, Chris Marlowe's here too, of Locked On Gamecocks. I'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, another Tuesday for the SEC? I mean, 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 the way that these teams have played and some of the great matchups in 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 at all i think you're gonna have to take a team out of the sec yeah steven it's old miss that 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 the pitching steps up that's the trick 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 a 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 that they have for the SEC. Corey, we were giving you a hard time last week with Vandy being the only team with a losing record. It 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 murderer's row of Eastern Michigan in Merritt, So it was bound to happen. One of the best directional Michigans, thank you. We run-ruled them twice through a combined no-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 giving Corey, you know, crap about losing games. Same. Yeah, Eric. What happened there? Hey, hey, hey, Chris, take it away, man. I mean, Kent State's good. Pretty good ball club. You said it last week. Zach rolled his eyes at me. I did. I did. Yeah, hats off to Kent State. Jimmy, who's your favorite alum from Kent State? Just real quick. Jack Lambert. Just over Nick Saban. Just over Nick Saban. Yeah. Julian Edelman? That's mine, 100%. Oh, that's right. Julian Edelman did come from Kent State. Quarterback. James Harrison? Anyway, Kent State's a pretty good ball club. I mean, they're a trendy regional team here in the preseason and into the early season. We'll see what happens. I think they were picked to win the MAAC. I mean, they're a good team, but Tennessee played horrible. You stole one on Friday night. You hit a walk-off pinch hit home run to win 4-3. You have 16 strikeouts in Saturday's game, and you lose 2-1. You know why? Because you were 0-4-11 with – no, 0-15 with runners on, 0-9 with runners in scoring position. Okay. And then Sunday you lose 9-5, and your bullpen just implodes in one inning. and 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, but good to see some adversity. Tennessee got punched in the mouth, and now we'll head to Arlington, and I'm intrigued to see how Tennessee responds. With that win, did Kent become a state? No, still not a state. Still not a state. Still not a state. Good question, though, Corey. Love that Chris Marler give us a South Carolina update No So one of those things we want to do Jimmy Stein tell us about Alabama I glad you didn ask me about South Carolina I think they played all the military things this past weekend. I watched South Carolina. He said no. I watched South Carolina versus Army. I watched quite a bit of that. That's the worst one, Jimmy. That's the worst one. Chris was going for South Carolina because he's not for the troops. It was, listen, Paul Maneri 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 the extent of what I'll say. Pitching hasn't been terrible, but 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, if the pitching's not there, because the pitching's been awesome for Ole Miss. It's been awesome for Texas. It's been awesome for a lot of teams that the hitting for Vanderbilt, moving that, that fence in, getting a little short portion, right. From three 30 to three 15. I mean, Lindsay Nelson of you there, Corey, it was, watch. There's, there's still a lot of good baseball in, in this conference. LSU looks really good. They just, they've hit the ball really well. They haven't really pitched as well as 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 we'll be one of the 12 teams in the, 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 winning 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 to seven in a row. They 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 would be a little worried about, frankly. Yeah, it's loaded. It's loaded. Quick Auburn update. Auburn got blasted by Cincinnati in the midweek. It 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 on this weekend. So a 3-0 stretch for the Tigers over the weekend that really restored faith after that really surprise 8-0 loss against Cincinnati. So starting pitching for Auburn, I think, is going to be a strength for this club. That's a good time. to start a good time, a good reminder, yearly reminder early in the year that midweek is not real baseball. Let's all keep that in mind. Midweek is not real baseball, 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 mean something. 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 much. It's an RBI opportunity. Yeah, absolutely. Who's been the biggest surprise so far this season? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, neighbors. You spoke first when I mentioned the 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 Arkansas Razorbacks update. He's like, 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 here. I'm so sorry. I skipped over Marler intentionally. And when we got to him, we all see why that was the right decision. I did not mean to skip over you. I'm so sorry. I can't wait to email you back tonight. I cannot wait. I bet you won't do it. I bet you won't. But more importantly, the Arkansas Razorbacks, they had a sweep over a mighty, mighty team over the weekend. And, you know, it's Xavier. 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've got to try to figure their ways out of. 100 Eats has 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. Kahio Aloy, which is Kahio Aloy's younger brother, has really stepped up. He had two walk-offs this past weekend. Wait, they're related? Yeah, can you believe that? Two people named Aloy related. That's wild. That is wild. Yeah. But you had that. You had Camden Kojal 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. They've got a midweek against an in-state rival of Arkansas State. But they've still got some really good teams that they're going to be playing later down the stretch. Arkansas is a state, though, so at least their name makes sense. 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 further. Great. We'll get to that and his thoughts. why next right here on the sec baseball squad squad today's show brought to you by our friends at mazda mazda's moving the game forward for those who show 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 just shout out people out yeah right yeah i know i'm giving it camden kojo hit for a cycle it's always a big deal i I don't care who it's in. He's an armadillo. That's right. And armadillos. 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. What it took to get there makes it count. There's more to Mazda because there's more to you. Today's show is also brought to you by our friends at Indeed. Chris Marler, what is your favorite thing about our friends at Indeed? You're muted. Corey Burton what is your favorite thing about our friends from Indeed They give you a credit when you sign up to get your job that premium status it deserves That's my favorite part. Yep. Steve and 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-sponsored jobs. And 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 show also brought to you by our friends at Fandle. Fandle is America's number one sports book. Chris Marler, give us a line on Fandle and what do you like so much about the, uh, the Fandle 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, he sees ghost. Yep. Yes. Yep, absolutely. So head over to FanDuel.com today. Thank you so much for making all of our shows your first listen every single day, or maybe your second listen. This is a bonus edition of the show. This is the SEC Baseball Squad. Chris Marler, you wanted to talk about Oklahoma. Our Sooner friends. sooner rather than later. You think they're the biggest surprise of the SEC so far? I mean, 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 for 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 game. The pitching's been great. I mean, they haven't played anybody this week. I think they played New Mexico State and Coppin State. But on the weekend, they win. One of those is the state. One of them is not. True. This weekend, they sweep that series and win 57-1 on the combined three games on the weekend. So I think especially with that happened last week, you keep waiting for them to kind of come back down to earth. And again, with the preseason expectations where they were going into the season, they've been really, really good. Is there an argument for Ole Miss being one of the biggest surprises so far? Steven, I thought you were going to interrupt Marler and say, know it's the Ole Miss Rebels. Well I'm waiting to see until after this three game tournament in Houston. That'll tell us a lot because Baylor is a pretty good program. Coastal Carolina obviously made it to the finals against LSU a year ago. Ohio State is a garbage program so we won't even talk about them. But if Ole Miss can get through this week at 4-0 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 Kay Townsend is 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 um 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 Kaner 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, 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 TikToks or anything 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, they're 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 bad if what they've done is just a product of facing sort of mid-pitching. They've even got a midweek this week at Southern Miss. That sounds like an NCAA regional type game. Yeah, that's tricky, yeah. Tough week for Alabama starting with that midweek at Southern Miss and then the tough weekend in Texas just like everyone else in the league. Yeah. Chris Marler, quick South Carolina update. 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 Tuesday, or on Tuesday. No doubleheader against Kings College, Zach. You know what I mean? Okay. Anyway, on the weekend, they're going to be playing Clemson, who I don't know if you've heard. You know what state Queens College is from? I learned this over the basketball season. North Carolina. North Carolina. Yeah. Okay. Everyone else knew that, Zach. I knew that but me. Used to be D2 in the South Atlantic Conference, where King is not that. Okay, you know everything about Queens College. Just 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 the thing they do every year. They play one game at Clemson, one game at South Carolina, and then one game as a neutral. I'll find a new way to get disappointed. Cannot wait. Marler, about Clemson, one thing that you might not know about, they famously sign players but don't actually have them sign contracts. 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 Vols this weekend? Yeah, it must be nice to win things, Steven. I wouldn't know about that with my quarterback this past weekend in North County. Yeah. Great weekend. Yeah. Tennessee loses a series. Non-con Joey Aguilar can't play. I'm excited to see how Tennessee is going to respond. I mean, there's so much talent on this roster, right? I mean, Tony Vitello, Josh Elander put it together as 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 We should go get an Airbnb. And going to play No. 1 UCLA on Friday. So really looking forward to that. Arizona State, which is a really good team, is a state. Going to play that on Saturday and then Virginia Tech on Sunday. So how does Tennessee respond? Are you going to fold over? Don't think so. Can you get two or three? Let's see. And then, you know, one more weekend against Wright State, and then it's SEC time. John Neighbors, you were laughing during the first part of that. John laughed? Yeah, it was like you were holding back some laughter. No, I was just – anytime I hear about the future Razorback head coach of baseball, I get a little bit tickled is all. When he mentioned Tony Vitello, it's just going to be awesome to see. But, no, it was honestly because I'm not – it kind of reminds me, And I'm wondering if Tennessee is going to go kind of the route that A&M did last year in baseball, where they lost Schlossnagel and they had this really talented team. Let's not even talk about that, okay? Yeah, I'm just saying that there's a possibility it could happen there. Let's do. Yeah, because a lot of times it's why, oh, 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. Yeah, they're going to be coming into town. Do they ever howl at y'all? Like, Georgia fans bark at people. Do Arkansas State fans ever howl? They're in Jonesboro. No one goes there anyway, so no one would know if they did. Yeah, so, but, yeah, J Boogie's not great. But either way, you got that going on. Then this weekend, you have UT Arlington, of course, with Arkansas playing. They got a few more non-conference. but they're on an 18-game home stretch. They do not play outside of Baumwalker Stadium until SEC play. Steer to competition. Yeah, well, that and also it's just a beautiful ballpark that people like to come to, so there's that too as well. But, yeah, so it's going to be – Go catch a game, go to Walmart, a lot of stuff to do there. A lot of chicken places to eat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, because you guys, you can talk down to Walmart, but I guarantee you went there probably today. So, yeah. Yeah. Sunday. I go to Target. You have a present, John, you ungrateful POS. Yep. Well, listen, it's a beautiful thing this time of year, but still, Arkansas is in good shape. I just need – it sucks because everyone's just like, ah, wake us up when the postseason hits because that's the only thing that matters. Hey, ho-hum, you had a sweep. That's great. No one cares. Man, you can turn anything negative. It's unbelievable. Steven Willis, host of Locked On, Ole Miss. What should we expect from the Rebels this weekend? 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 I was like, no, don't even look at that for a month. Come on. They're collecting data. I would be all over that if I were you. Yeah. Yeah. it's like yeah 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 i thought that was a thing they like released later i just love my god steven reference you know talking things over on email that was that was great that was awesome that was that was so nice yeah cory burton uh what's vandy got this weekend well vandy's got a 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 Fennell, 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 Las Vegas? All right. And then 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 bumped up? West Georgia would be – I assume West Georgia is very close to us. It's on the opposite side of the state. Yeah, I thought Auburn was West Georgia. Yeah, that's the joke. In February, RPI is really pretty irrelevant. Yes, it is. Absolutely. But that doesn't stop getting emails. It took me two whole minutes to come up with that, though. Yeah, I could tell you were thinking down there. I didn't know what exactly was thinking, but it came out piping hot. Two minutes. Two full minutes. And another thing. All right. That broadcast school is really paying off. All right. I think we're going to say one more thing before we're all done. Zach, you look great. I'm going to write an email to you tonight. That's all I got. I'm going to have a few more drinks before I do it. The longer the better. I think that's a really good idea. For Corey Burton of Lockdown Vandy, Stephen Willis of Lockdown Ole Miss, John Neighbors of Lockdown Razorbacks, Eric Cain of Lockdown Vols, and Jimmy Stein, co-host of Lockdown Bama. Just kidding. Chris Marler, host of Lockdown Gamecocks here as well. I'm Zach Blackerby of Lockdown Auburn. This has been the SEC Baseball Squad. Do not stay free to try to do that. Don't do it. You can just move through life or you can find the things that move you. It's your choice. Choose joy. Choose the road. Choose your shot. Take it. Choose to get in there. Choose your calling. Choose your path. Just choose. We craft cars for those who choose to do more than simply move. You know who you are. Mazda. Move and be moved. I wake up.
