Alabama Softball Coach Patrick Murphy Discusses Upcoming Season

University of Alabama softball coach Patrick Murphy joined the Houston and Huber Show on Thursday morning to talk about the upcoming season and what to expect from the newcomers.

During his tenure, the Alabama softball team has won four SEC Championships and one National Championship. With that success comes high expectations. Unfortunately there was a little disappointment in last year's season after winning the national championship in 2012. He explained why Alabama struggled throughout .

"I think last year, after maybe a month or two, people realized that Jackie (Traina) wasn't the healthiest that she had been from the year before. We had to replace a lot from the year before and that transition year between going from non-starter to thrust into a huge role was a lot bigger than what I thought it would turn out to be. You gotta have that year under your belt to adjust to everybody coming after you. Of course it was the year after we won a national championship."

There is a lot of buzz and excitement for this year's season. Murphy explained what this team has and what each position has to offer.

"We have 5 seniors, 5 juniors, and 4 in the sophomore and freshman class. The experience is there and the mental mistakes should be minimized because you have two seniors in the infield. We have a senior catching. The only young spot is our outfield where it could be three sophomores or two sophomores and freshman. So that's really the only inexperience position. Pitching you have Jackie (Traina) a senior, Leslie Jury a junior, and a freshman so it's been great. The leadership has been great and the chemistry has been awesome. I'm looking forward to it and I can't wait to see what they do."

The level of talent has never really been an issue for this team. Murphy and his staff do an excellent job recruiting, and the new faces on this team will show their talent quickly. Murphy finds difficulty picking out just one of the many new freshman to discuss, but he sheds a little light into the future talent for this team.

"There's four (freshmen) and I really can pick any of them, but today I'll pick the pitcher. Her name is Sydney Littlejohn. She's 6'1" and she is from Rusk, Texas. She had a really good fall. Pitchers are almost like quarterbacks, you never know what you are going to get until the game starts.She did really well and she handled herself really well. Her mental game was good. She pitched very consistent and in scrimmages against our team she looked good and to me that's a good thing because if she can get our kids out then she is going to get opponent's kids out."

You can listen to the entire interview with Patrick Murphy here.

Patrick Murphy will join the Houston and Huber Show every Thursday morning.