2021 COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 18, 2021

Jay Johnson

Arizona Wildcats

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by head coach Jay Johnson. We will do an opening statement from coach first, then go to questions from the media.

Coach, please go ahead and open us up with an opening statement.

JAY JOHNSON: Yeah, for sure. It's awesome to be here. There's nowhere you want to be in the month of June than at TD Ameritrade in Omaha, Nebraska. I'm very happy to be here with our team, very proud of our team.

Very consistent throughout the year. Had a great non-conference schedule, obviously Pac-12 champions, then regional and super regional champions. That's a bunch of players that have done the right things on and off the field over a long period of time, and certainly deserve this opportunity.

As far as moving into the weekend, we obviously are excited to be here with the other teams and quality opponents, starting with Vanderbilt tomorrow night. Certainly excited to be here. Omaha, as advertised, as always, a great experience. Tomorrow night we'll turn our attention to getting to the field and be ready to go.

THE MODERATOR: We'll take some questions for coach.

Q. When you got off the plane, what kind of memories came back to you, what sort of feelings did it give you five years later?

JAY JOHNSON: Yeah, all very positive. That was obviously a great experience. I mean, we did everything in that tournament except get one more base hit to win the national championship. But very proud of how that team competed. They were definitely worthy of being here.

I have the same types of feelings about this team. It's a reward for a tremendous regular season and start to the post-season. It's unlike anything else in our sport. It's the best thing in our sport, at least from the competitive standpoint.

So just excited, looking to use that experience to put ourselves in a position to be successful this weekend.

Q. Regarding Donta, the way he plays, grinding out every at-bat, runs hard, throwing his body around on the field, what kind of tone does that set for the team, influence on the other players?

JAY JOHNSON: Tremendous. He's a great leader in terms of words. He says the right things. He's a great leader in terms of actions, in terms of controllable things, work ethic off the field, all of those types of things.

But I think his true value is how he impacts our team on the field, impacts his teammates on the field. I mean, I came up with the nickname the 'Engine' for him. He is truly the engine of our offense. I don't think he gets the credit he deserves. I think he very easily could have been the Pac-12 Player of the Year. I think he's an All-American caliber player.

There's not a player in the country that's played better in the NCAA tournament. That's on both sides of the ball in terms of what he does to kick-start our offense, his ability to drive the ball here late in the season has really changed some of these post-season games. It's obviously well documented how good he is in centerfield. That gives us an advantage going into this weekend in this particular outfield.

Q. Technically since there was no World Series last year, Vandy is the defending champion from 2019. Does that bring out any other feelings of maybe nervousness or anything knowing that opening round one you're going up against the best team from a couple years in college baseball?

JAY JOHNSON: You just said it. Right now they are the kings of college baseball in terms of on-the-field results, how their program has operated and run over a long period of time. We have a ton of respect for those guys. Their roster is talented. They're extremely well-coached.

I wouldn't have it any other way. We actually on selection day painted a picture of this exact matchup. Obviously there was a lot of baseball to be played in the regional and super regional. I had my reasons at that time for bringing this up.

We're excited about it. I mean, you think about it, 6:00, everybody in Tucson watching, everybody in the entire country watching. What a great opportunity for our program against one of the best pitchers in college baseball history. He's obviously had a ton of success. They have very good players throughout that lineup. Enrique Bradfield is a terrific lead-off man, and it doesn't stop there. They know what they're doing. They're very talented. That's how I feel about our team.

I think it's going to be a tremendous matchup.

Q. In the last game against Ole Miss, you switched up the lineup. You had Berry, Boissiere, and Bullard together. Seemed to work pretty well. Is that something we may see again?

JAY JOHNSON: Yeah, you might. My view on those things, as I've said with you guys locally, players at this age often change day-to-day. It's not a 162-game season where you're playing every single day. Obviously we'll look at the matchup, look at where we feel our guys are at, put them in the best position to be successful for us to score two in every inning, as we try to do.

There may be some adjustments to that. We haven't quite finished our preparation relative to tomorrow night.

What is good about our lineup is there are no breaks. The spot in the batting order is only relevant to the lineup card, but your job changes. There are eight or nine leadoff guys in a game. They are the leadoff hitter each inning it comes up. They have a job to do. Then you have the execution at-bat, then the red zone at-bat.

I have confidence in all those guys. The tweak certainly worked well against Ole Miss on Sunday night. We'll look at this game and decide what's best and go with that.

Q. Vanderbilt has a guy with 46 steals. So far this season it seems like you guys have been successful in slowing down team's run games, whether it be with throws over to first or just being able to manage better. How does this guy stand out compared to others you might have faced?

JAY JOHNSON: I don't know that I've ever seen 46 on a stat sheet (laughter). Enrique is a great player. We actually recruited him a little bit. He came out to a tournament in Arizona a couple years ago. They use his skill set really well, whether it's with the bunting game, the strike zone discipline, to obviously steal bases.

He will run at any time, no outs, no strikes, two outs, two strikes, and everything in between. We're going to have to do a good job. Obviously the best thing you can do is keep him off base. That will be the focus. If we can do that, then we're not threatened by the running game with him.

But they have other guys that will run as well. They manage the game incredibly well relative to bunting, base running and all of those types of things. They actually remind me of us a few years ago in terms of our style of play.

So it will be a great matchup. Our pitchers are going to have to do a good job holding, picking, all of those types of things.

Q. Their pitching gets so much attention, maybe it takes away and hides the fact that their offense has been pretty solid this year. What do you see from that group that most concerns you?

JAY JOHNSON: Yeah, I think it starts at the top with Bradfield. He can be disruptive. Carter Young is a great player, another West Coast guy, another guy we recruited really hard. A funny story. At the house I used to rent, we had a small pool in the backyard. I stayed on the phone with him and walked around the pool for 80 laps, and I couldn't get him to say yes. So it will be fun seeing him on the field.

CJ Rodriguez, another West Coast guy, really good player, strong hitter, clutch, all of those types of things. Vaz just came back, he's athletic and disruptive. Keegan is a good player. It doesn't stop there. They're just really balanced left, right, speed, power, solid hitting skills throughout. We're going to have to fill up the strike zone, work ahead in the count, and do what we do when our pitchers pitch best.

Q. Do you think more teams in the eastern half of the country have figured out the prominence of players out west, they're more eager to get those players now?

JAY JOHNSON: They should be. We certainly need to do a good job of not allowing them to fly over the top of us. When you look at Jacob Gonzalez at Ole Miss, Carter Young, CJ Rodriguez, I think it's a really good job of evaluating by some of those teams. Because a couple of the guys I mentioned, you could tell they were really, really good players, but maybe they weren't listed at the top of recruiting rankings or player rankings or all those types of things.

I tip my hat in this case to Vanderbilt, in last week's case to Ole Miss, of doing a good job recruiting some guys out here.

Q. You mentioned something interesting about the approach that you ask your guys to take at the start of each inning. Traditionally thinking about a baseball lineup, it seems like the roles are tied to what spot in the order they have. You laid it out how you approach it. Have you always done it that way? Where did that approach come from?

JAY JOHNSON: Yeah, I think it depends on what type of team you have. Most importantly with this particular team, we have a lot of really good winning college baseball players that are really balanced hitters, that manage the strike zone incredibly well. You just can't pitch them one way. They're very disciplined in what they do.

Our goal is to get three quality at-bats in a row as many times as we can throughout the game. When we do that four times throughout a game, we're really, really tough to beat. There's probably going to be eight or nine runs up on the board.

Now, in this environment with everybody having a good pitching staff, the ballpark being a little more defensive oriented in terms of the grass is perfect, the dirt is perfect, it's cut where it's a little bit slower, the way the stadium faces and the wind, you may not have some of those free opportunities that you always get.

So what we need to do is make it difficult on the pitchers we face. That will be the goal. But the goal will always be how many times can we get three quality at-bats in a row.

Q. In addition to Vanderbilt's high-powered offense, especially with their pitching, in the last 20 games only three of them they've allowed double-digit runs. You have a potent offense. Could you speak a little bit to what you feel makes Vanderbilt's pitching so successful, especially against teams in the SEC.

JAY JOHNSON: Yeah, I mean, the first two guys that get the headlines, they're major leaguers. They're going to leave there and then they're going to be in the major leagues quicker than most college guys, I would guess. Just tremendous stuff across the board. Fast ball with velocity, fast ball with command, really good out-pitch breaking balls, change-up. They move the ball around really well, and appear to be really good competitors.

They also have some really good bullpen pieces that have unique ability, and they're not all the same. So you're constantly having to make adjustments and those types of things.

Really good job of them by recruiting, putting together a staff where you have some surefire major league talent, then some really unique pieces out of the bullpen. I'm sure there's more than two major leaguers on that pitching staff.

I think they're talented. I think they throw strikes, have good breaking balls. They change speeds effectively well, and have guys throughout the staff that can do that and make it difficult to score runs.

Q. All the talk this week has been about Rocker and Leiter, deservedly so. How do you assess the form that your top starters are coming into this tournament with?

JAY JOHNSON: Well, we're in Omaha. We're not in Omaha without the starting pitchers doing what they've done to this point in the season. No secret Garrett didn't have a great outing last week. Chase has had a couple bumps here lately.

But they possess some of the things that I just mentioned in describing our opponent's pitching staff. And the best thing that those guys, their best quality, is what's inside them in terms of their competitiveness, their drive, their winning-type quality where they found a way when they haven't always been their best.

I don't think either of those guys or any of our pitchers, like this will be too much for them. I think this team has responded to everything thrown at them. Really looking forward to the guys that take the mound for our team and how they, I won't call it rise to the occasion, but how they handle themselves in this environment because we have a lot of trust in them.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, we really appreciate your time joining us today.