Alabama Hires Brad Bohannon As Coach

Brad Bohannon (Courtesy of Auburn Athletics)

Alabama has hired Brad Bohannon, Auburn’s recruiting coordinator and the 2015 Assistant Coach of the Year, as its new head coach Thursday.

First-year Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne moved quickly to hire a new coach after firing Greg Goff last week. Bohannon will continue to coach with Auburn this weekend as the Tigers compete in the Tallahassee Regional. Auburn opens the NCAA Tournament on Friday against Central Florida.

Bohannon, 42, is the latest member of John Cohen’s coaching tree to get a job leading a Southeastern Conference program. He joins Auburn coach Butch Thompson and Kentucky coach Nick Mingione, who were both assistant coaches under Cohen at Mississippi State, and Mississippi State coach Andy Cannizaro, whom Cohen hired as his own replacement when he was promoted to athletic director last fall.

Cohen hired Bohannon as an assistant coach at Kentucky in 2004, and the two worked together until Cohen was hired away by Mississippi State in 2008. Bohannon remained at Kentucky for 12 seasons, leaving in the fall of 2015 to join Thompson at Auburn.

At Auburn, Bohannon brought in the 21st-ranked recruiting class this fall. Many of the Tigers’ regulars come from that class, including all-SEC center fielder Jonah Todd (.385/.466/.487), and helped quickly turn the program around after going 23-33 and finishing 13th in the SEC last season. Auburn is 35-24 this year and finished seventh in the conference.

Bohannon played at Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech and Berry (Ga.). He began his coaching career at Wake Forest, spending two seasons with the Demon Deacons before moving to Kentucky.

This is the third time Byrne has hired a baseball coach in his career as an athletic director. He hired Cohen at Mississippi State in 2008 and Jay Johnson at Arizona in 2015. That track record of success portends well for Bohannon at Alabama.

The Crimson Tide are coming off a disastrous 19-34-1 season, their fewest wins since 1980. They finished last in the SEC at 5-24-1 in Goff’s first—and only—season. There was also tumult off the field, as Goff reportedly told players in their exit interviews that their scholarships would be cut, a violation of the NCAA rules that govern Power Five conferences. It was after that was reported by The Tuscaloosa News last Tuesday that Byrne acted, firing Goff the next day.

2017 COACHING CHANGES
School	Departures	Arrivals
Alabama	Greg Goff	Brad Bohannon
Cincinnati	Ty Neal
Citadel	Fred Jordan
Dayton	Tony Vittorio
La Salle	Mike Lake
Massachusetts	Mike Stone	Matt Reynolds
North Florida	Smoke Laval
Santa Clara	Dan O’Brien
Stanford	Mark Marquess (retiring after season)
Tennessee	Dave Serrano
Texas-Rio Grande Valley	Manny Mantrana
Towson	Mike Gottlieb
Virginia Tech	Patrick Mason