When Alabama hired Rob Vaughn from Maryland in June of 2023 to be the team’s head baseball coach, he brought plenty of new things to the Crimson Tide program, one of which was his “Pack” offense.
The name originated in 2006 when former Texas A&M head coach Matt Deggs was inspired by a documentary that emphasized that wolves work as a pack to defeat prey. He then used that mindset for his team and passed it onto Andy Sawyers when he took over as the Aggies head coach.
Sawyers, who was the hitting coach at Kansas State while Vaughn was there as a player, passed it onto him, and Vaughnhas used the motto ever since. The philosophy translates to baseball in the sense that just as each wolf plays a role in the pack, each player on the lineup plays a role in terms of hitting. Some hitters are meant to get on base and steal bases, others drive in those baserunners, some are meant to bring plate discipline and some can do all three.
“Every wolf in the pack has its job, and it’s no different than our offense,” Vaughn said. “When you look at it, every hitter is built differently. They have different skill sets, and for us to coach them the same doesn’t make any sense.”
Essentially, the offense emphasizes three key things: toughness, approach and intensity. The Pack mentality encourages the players to not worry about individual results but to help the team win by any means necessary.
“That’s really what it’s all about, which is, ‘How can we emphasize what you do really well, and how can we understand what this is all about?’” Vaughn said. “It’s not me going 3-for-3. It’s us finding a way to score 5-6 runs and take down a Friday-night guy.”
In Vaughn’s first season in Tuscaloosa, there really wasn’t much of an emphasis on stolen bases, with Alabama only swiping 29 as a ballclub. Instead, a big emphasis was on the long ball, with the Crimson Tide hitting 90 homers.
“Don’t get me wrong. I want to slug the baseball. I think the best teams slug, so we want to do that,” Vaughn said. “But we had to be able to do some different things, too. Stolen bases weren’t a part of the game. We were kind of a station-to-station offense.”
Now that his second season is looming, Vaughn believes the offense will be more balanced and that the Pack will function as it was originally intended.
“That’s what I like about this group. I think we have some different ways we can score,” Vaughn said. “You’re gonna see the Pack, I think, function a little more, just due to the personnel this year, the way that we intend for it to function. I’m excited about it.”
Alabama will showcase its Pack offense for the first time in 2025 on Friday at 4 p.m. CT against Bradley. The game can be streamed on SEC Network+.
