Rob Vaughn's Message to Alabama Players About NCAA Tournament Hosting Chances

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Alabama baseball head coach Rob Vaughn made mention of an iconic Nick Saban remark after his team's series win over Georgia last weekend. Saban, the legendary former Crimson Tide football coach, was known to refer to media reports and speculation as "rat poison."

Vaughn, whose second year in Tuscaloosa has thus far included 39 wins, 15 conference victories and a perfect go of the midweek slate, used the line this past Sunday because conjecture has considerably risen about the No. 18 Crimson Tide hosting an NCAA regional.

"Our message to them [the players] is, let you guys [media] talk about that, let me answer some questions about that in here [media room], but just go out and try to win baseball games," Vaughn said on Sunday afternoon.

Alabama (39-13, 15-12 SEC) faces No. 23 Florida (35-18, 13-14 SEC) on the road starting Thursday in the final series of the regular season. The Gators have completely altered the direction of their season after a 1-11 start to SEC play.

"I know if we go out and have a good weekend this weekend, everybody's gonna be talking about it this week," Vaughn said. "There's a legend... that talked about what that is. That rat poison will do nothing to help us be ready to rock next Thursday at Gainesville."

The Crimson Tide did change its own hosting chances with the result in the Georgia series. It was the first series Alabama won this season after falling in the opening game. Winning two of three against the Gators means the Crimson Tide will have 17 league wins and most likely host.

"That's the, probably the hottest team in the country right now," Vaughn said. "I can tell you none of this group is gonna be okay if we played really good for nine weeks and then laid an egg week 10. That's not what we do. We've gotta be finishers. We've got to finish. We didn't finish good enough last year."

Alabama struggled mightily from May 2024 onwards. It lost a series against an Auburn team that didn't make the SEC Tournament, then went one-and-done in the SEC Tournament despite being the No. 7 seed and put up an 0-2 record as the No. 2 seed in the Tallahassee Regional.

If the Crimson Tide gets to host this summer, it will be the second time the program has done so in the last three years. This season's team has put itself in a position to be considered by only losing one game in all of nonconference play, not to mention having a winning SEC record on May 14.

"This group's knocking on the door of winning 40 games in the regular season. That ain't easy to do," Vaughn said. "They've rung the bell in the midweeks. They rang the bell out of conference. They've done those things. They've beat some really good teams... That stuff will take care of itself."