Butch Thompson reveals message from Pat Casey, Ray Tanner before Auburn's elimination game

Auburn put themselves in a tough situation on Monday, facing elimination against Stanford after just one game at the College World Series. Staying alive was goal No. 1 for head coach Butch Thompson but at the end of the day, winning a national championship is what’s wanted.

Usually, losing Game 1 is the kiss of death, as only four have come back to hoist the trophy when it’s all said and done. With Thompson wanting to make it five, he looked for inspiration from two coaches who accomplished the feat, Pat Casey and Ray Tanner.

Thompson explained how he was in his hotel last night, figuring out a way to motivate his team. He gave the two former head coaches a call, where they gave the Auburn head coach plenty to think about before Monday’s first pitch.

“Our word today was ‘surrender,'” Thompson said. “And I’m sitting in my hotel last night and I’m, like, all right, they’re telling me only four teams out of the last 40 years have lost that first game and won the national championship. Who is it? And then I looked and I was, like, okay, Pat Casey did it in ’06 and ’18, and Tanner did it in ’10. How about I call them tonight since I’m sitting here?

“Both of those men got back and both gave me paragraphs of taking me through the journey with their team. Like I say, the man or woman or the team that will never quit, they’ve got a chance. And I just want us to fight and I want us to attack. And that’s all you can ask for.”

Casey was able to overcome the odds twice while at Oregon State, while Tanner did so at South Carolina. Of the four times a program has been able to drop the first game and win the national championship, these two coaches make up for three of them.

Thompson and Auburn ended up completing step one of getting to the championship series by defeating Stanford. Three more elimination games are on the dock if the Tigers are hoping to get there. Once they are one of the final two teams, it’s a fresh start in a best of three-game series.

Next up will be the loser of Arkansas–Ole Miss, which at the time of writing, is still ongoing. Auburn has already lost to the Rebels while in Omaha but has not faced the Razorbacks yet.