Alabama Names Brad Bohannon Baseball Head Coach

Alabama AD Greg Byrne wasted no time in replacing Greg Goff with the hiring of Brad Bohannon, who was a finalist and favorite of many Tide fans this time a year ago.

Bohannon was the 2015 American Baseball Coaches Association and Baseball America National Assistant Coach of the Year.

From Greg Byrne’s office:

"I am excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Brad Bohannon to be our new head baseball coach at The University of Alabama," said Byrne. "As we began the search and studied our successful rosters from the past regional and College World Series teams, it became apparent that we needed our head coach to be very strong in recruiting in the state Alabama, the Southeast and then completing the roster with national recruits. The vision that Brad shared for Alabama baseball matched that recruiting philosophy and coupled it with a great coaching pedigree and a commitment to the student-athlete, both as a baseball player and as a well-rounded student. We are confident that he will be able to lead our program to championship levels, which we all value here at Alabama."

Bohannon began his college coaching career at Wake Forest from 2001-02. He next served as an assistant at Kentucky from 2004-15 and, most recently, Auburn from 2016-17. Byrne himself spent 2002–2005 at Kentucky as the Associate AD under Mitch Barnhart and was certainly part of Bohannon’s hiring in Lexington. In addition, John Cohen was the Wildcats baseball coach from 2004-2008 before he was hired away by Mississippi State AD... (wait for it) Greg Byrne in 2009. So, there is definitely some familiarity here.

The new Tide coach has an excellent reputation as a recruiter. According to a UA press release “he was responsible for signing 13 Wildcat student-athletes that went on to play professional baseball, including 2014 Golden Spikes Award winner A.J. Reed (now a top prospect with the Astros)”. It is believed that he will be able to recruit the region very well and keep many of the local recruits in-state. He is credited with helping to turnaround the programs at both Kentucky and Auburn.

A total of 69 Kentucky players were selected in the MLB Draft or signed as a free agent, a program best, from Bohannon’s time as UK’s recruiting coordinator. In 2012, nine of his recruits were picked in the MLB Draft, a new school record, marking the second-most in the NCAA.

Bohannon, a native of Rome, Ga., earned an undergraduate degree in finance in 1998 from Berry College in Georgia. He then went on to earn a master's degree in business administration from Wake Forest in 2002.

We will have Roger’s take later on today.