Tennessee Softball 2025

#10,327
#10,327
volman128 said:
Don't expect Rutan to get much time. Honestly she's a questionable take as a transfer, similar to Barnhart and Brown this past season.
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My thought is that they got her as a hitter instead of a pitcher after hitting .413 this past season with 13 homeruns. Of course that is a different league and situation so she like Mealer has a lot to prove she can hit in the SEC. Her position is first base the same position as the Boise State transfer. We should get our answer in the first part of the season as to whether she can come close to what she did in that league.
 
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#10,329
#10,329
kregman said:
Karen needs to be courting big money donors. Times have changed like it or not. We will win our share with Karlyn but O boy after her it is going to be grim. Karen proved once again her coaching won’t take us over the top.
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Just like some predicted it would be grim after Ashley, and grim after the Renfroe sisters, grim after Monica…

Each season and each recruiting class is its own thing, and since the first time they made the NCAA tournament in 2004, they’ve been a top 16 national seed every single year. You can certainly make an argument some of those teams underachieved, others overachieved, but they’ve never been bad. The situation has certainly never been grim.

They have courted major donors, and there are major donors and companies that are spending money on our athletes, including our softball team. There were three or four players on the team this year that were right at the six-figure mark, one significantly over that. Many of them received team wide benefits from individual player NIL deals. The player that just left received several thousand dollars for recording a commercial that ran online and on social media at the beginning of the NCAA tournament.

That’s the part of this discussion that I think casual observers are completely misunderstanding. Tennessee’s donors and collectives are handing out more money in NIL for softball than all but maybe one or two programs in the conference. We are spending more than Florida, Alabama, Georgia etc. Texas had to fight to keep a couple of their players from going to Lubbock, so did Oklahoma. Those programs have invested well. Texas A&M spent a lot last year and after the loss in regionals are having trouble getting some of those donors to re-up for next year. You have not seen them be nearly as active in the portal to this point as they would like to be. But that is what has made this situation so unique and has been the reason why the response nationally has been what it is. She wasn’t picking between zero dollars here and a significant offer there, her family jumped on a guaranteed offer there without taking any time to see what would be available here. It would have been significant, though I’ll admit not as significant as what she took.

You have one program that has one donor who just sold his company for $4 billion that is willing to pay whatever it takes to be good in a select a couple of sports that he really cares about. Outside of the Haslam family, Tennessee only has three alums that are billionaires, one isn’t interested in athletics, and the other two have declined to be active in the NIL space. It sucks, but it is what it is.
 
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#10,330
#10,330
volman128 said:
Don't expect Rutan to get much time. Honestly she's a questionable take as a transfer, similar to Barnhart and Brown this past season.
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You may be correct, but she is someone that Tennessee saw in person earlier this year as an opponent and jumped on the second she went in the portal. That reaction tells me they value her a lot more than you think. I agree with someone else, I think her bat was the primary reason they went after her, but she does provide some needed depth in the circle as they develop the young arms.
 
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#10,331
#10,331
volman128 said:
Don't expect Rutan to get much time. Honestly she's a questionable take as a transfer, similar to Barnhart and Brown this past season.
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Brown yes, Barnhart is a take. Barnhart provides power from the left side and has experience. I don’t see Rutan being a factor if we recruited right.
 
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#10,332
#10,332
orangemadam said:
I don't think all will be gloom and doom when KP is gone.
We hear a lot of this kind of talk every year when a top player leaves.
Even in the baseball thread, "when Moore leaves, it'll be years before were back up", etc
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I agree about the annual pity party that happens when great players leave. It's generated by frustration about being helpless or so I've read. I'm not worried about our pitching. Karlyn, Sage, Erin and the rest will do fine however, losing the whole infield less 2nd base is going to challenge Karen to field a strong defensive compliment for her pitching.

With the number of new players, offense might not improve significantly with the new bats but what we had this year helped get us into the WCWS Semi's and a final national ranking of #4. By the end of the season, we saw Gabby's, Emma's and Ella's hitting improve. Offensive performance is going to change.....new players will step up....they have to.

We've lost a lot of talent over the last 3 years (Milloy, Nugent, Puni, Gibson, Gottshall, West, Rogers, Donihoo, Pannell......). If I took the roster of returning players, a lineup might look like this.

P - Pickens, Mardjetko, Newer
C -
1B - Clarke
2B - Dodge
SS - Faw
3B -
LF - Morgan
CF - A. Leach
RF - G. Leach

I don't know where Shuler, Sarvis, Barnhart and Ahlin fit. It's pretty clear that unplanned departures have a big effect. When I look at the returners, I don't see the power bats we've grown accustomed to.
 
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#10,333
#10,333
DeerPark12 said:
She wasn’t picking between zero dollars here and a significant offer there, her family jumped on a guaranteed offer there without taking any time to see what would be available here. It would have been significant, though I’ll admit not as significant as what she took.
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Nice insight. She made the best decision for her if this is accurate. Which goes back to it being a Tennessee issue.
 
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#10,334
#10,334
Majors said:
Brown yes, Barnhart is a take. Barnhart provides power from the left side and has experience. I don’t see Rutan being a factor if we recruited right.
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I mean, Barnhart hasn't hit over .300 yet in college at two different schools. I would love for her to prove me wrong. She was an elite player in HS and was the state Gatorade POY.
 
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#10,335
#10,335
Chloe Lackey (Oliver Springs) from USC is in the portal. This will tell you were Tennessee is at in recruiting…not a take. Brown all over of a Tennessee kid who isn’t an all-state player.
 
#10,336
#10,336
Majors said:
Nice insight. She made the best decision for her if this is accurate. Which goes back to it being a Tennessee issue.
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It is not a “Tennessee” issue. It is a “nearly every program not named Texas Tech” issue. I say “nearly” because there are a few others competing with their dollars better than the rest. But to my knowledge, no program is coming close to matching Tech’s current outlay…it is spending like a drunken sailor.

There is one huge outlier here. Let’s not make it more than it really is.

And I suspect that the huge outlier will eventually get tired of shoveling his money away…and Tech will move back toward the norm.
 
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#10,337
#10,337
volman128 said:
I mean, Barnhart hasn't hit over .300 yet in college at two different schools. I would love for her to prove me wrong. She was an elite player in HS and was the state Gatorade POY.
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If she can get under .300 over even above, I’ll take it with what she can give you in power. My expectation for her is DH.
 
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#10,338
#10,338
EZE said:
It is not a “Tennessee” issue. It is a “nearly every program not named Texas Tech” issue. I say “nearly” because there are a few others competing with their dollars better than the rest. But to my knowledge, no program is coming close to matching Tech’s current outlay…it is spending like a drunken sailor.

There is one huge outlier here. Let’s not make it more than it really is.

And I suspect that the huge outlier will eventually get tired of shoveling his money away…and Tech will move back toward the norm.
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If Tennessee can’t meet the number as a whole, it’s a Tennessee issue. Pickens is paid nicely as she should be, probably leaving money on the table that she could get elsewhere. It’s now a business and not many here would go work for less money. Texas Tech is waking up the programs nationwide to get behind softball or lose out. They can’t take everyone but they can drive up numbers.
 
#10,339
#10,339
Majors said:
Nice insight. She made the best decision for her if this is accurate. Which goes back to it being a Tennessee issue.
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Sure, not having a billionaire that’s willing to spend $5 million on softball is a “Tennessee issue.” Get the hell out of here with that nonsense.

What program in America do you think can spend even $1 million in donor money on softball? I’m gonna clue you in, the answer is currently zero. So if you have one program that’s spending 5 million, and nobody else is spending more than a million, that’s what we call an outlier. That’s not a Tennessee problem or an Oklahoma problem or a Texas problem. That’s a “everyone else has to deal with something they will never match” problem.
 
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#10,343
#10,343
Majors said:
If Tennessee can’t meet the number as a whole, it’s a Tennessee issue. Pickens is paid nicely as she should be, probably leaving money on the table that she could get elsewhere. It’s now a business and not many here would go work for less money. Texas Tech is waking up the programs nationwide to get behind softball or lose out. They can’t take everyone but they can drive up numbers.
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I suspect that Tech will eventually move back to reasonableness. I love the sport, but it’s not like softball is the cash cow of any school.
 
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#10,345
#10,345
Majors said:
No doubt they are going all in for next season. Much like us, life after Canady will be a different program.
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what do you mean much like us? we have had all american pitchers year after year. (Monica, Gotshall, Rogers, Pickens). We kind of just keep reloading. I’m sure another will emerge.
 
#10,347
#10,347
volfan__18 said:
what do you mean much like us? we have had all american pitchers year after year. (Monica, Gotshall, Rogers, Pickens). We kind of just keep reloading. I’m sure another will emerge.
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Life after Pickens will be hard to manage. Monica was almost 20 years ago. We had 3 out of 4 on one roster and didn’t get to the last team standing. Rogers was hurt, Pickens was young and Payton was solid.
 
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#10,348
#10,348
Majors said:
Life after Pickens will be hard to manage. Monica was almost 20 years ago. We had 3 out of 4 on one roster and didn’t get to the last team standing. Rogers was hurt, Pickens was young and Payton was solid.
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i think we will be just fine. One thing about karen is she is going to put a top 20 team on the field every year.
 
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#10,350
#10,350
volfan__18 said:
i think we will be just fine. One thing about karen is she is going to put a top 20 team on the field every year.
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Top 20 now, depending on ranking # is the difference between top of the SEC to lower half. Just expectations drop drastically, not saying it couldn’t be done but you lose the Pickens factor of confidence. I keep going back, 2024 was the best chance to win it. All the pieces were there to be in the final series.
 
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