Nothing in Will Coggin’s job description suggests team psychologist needs to be part of the equation.

However, it doesn't hurt to have some knowledge when you’re Georgia’s hitting coach charged with the responsibility of making sure the Bulldogs’ bats stay consistent throughout the grind of a tough SEC season.

“Anytime things are going good, you try to keep them going good, right? It’s not just about getting hot; it’s about staying hot. Also, it’s not about getting a good swing, but keeping a good swing,” Coggin said. “There’s some day-to-day maintenance, but yeah, sometimes you do have to be a psychologist. Because it’s not always your swing. Sometimes there are a lot of pieces to the pizza in terms of mechanics, approach, timing, and all those things that go into it. But No. 1, you’ve got to believe.”

Coggin certainly has the Bulldogs believing.

Heading into this weekend’s series against Ole Miss, Georgia is the second-best offensive team in the SEC, with a team batting average of .321, just behind Tennessee, which leads the conference at .330.

How about power? Thirty-six games into the season, Georgia’s 94 home runs are just 11 shy of the school-record 109 set in 2019.

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Georgia’s 346 runs scored are also the second-most in the conference, behind the Vols (who lead the SEC in home runs with 95 and runs scored with 370).

Individually, seven Bulldog regulars are hitting over .300, ranging from Henry Hunter's average of .302 up to the .483 of All-American Charlie Condon.

Three other Bulldog regulars are over .289, including catcher Fernando Gonzalez, who is having a career offensive year with six homers and 27 RBIs.

“This game has so much failure in it. You know the adage, if you succeed three out of 10 times, you’re a Hall of Famer in our game. But no question, sometimes you really have to encourage these guys, because we face good pitchers in our league,” Coggin said. “You play in tough environments, and there are lots of competitive moments in games. So, you have to make them believe. It starts from within. If they don’t believe, it’s hard for anyone else to believe.”

Every hitter on the team is given a specific plan of attack, depending on his strengths.

No cookie cutter approaches here.

“Every hitter is different. Every hitter has different strengths. Charlie Condon, we don’t want him to hit the ball on the ground, if possible. Slate Alford, we prefer him driving the ball and prefer him making most of his outs in the air to the outfield,” Coggin said. “Different guys are better at hitting different pitches in different areas, so each guy has a different approach. We don’t have just one generic approach for each guy usually. There are different approaches for different guys. Some guys are more patient, some guys are more aggressive early. We do have a pretty common two-strike approach. The batting average on balls in play last year was .380 at Foley Field.

“In professional baseball, it’s more about continuing to take your swing and do damage, and Foley Field is obviously a great park to hit in. We want to hit home runs here, but we also definitely want to shorten up and compete a little bit more with two strikes.”

Again, the numbers suggest the Bulldogs are paying attention.

Georgia’s 273 strikeouts represent the fourth fewest in the 14-team SEC, while the 228 walks represent the fourth most in the league.

“You’re only as good as the pitches you swing at, No. 1. You can swing at a pitch two inches off the plate away from you 100 times and only hit .150 against said pitch. But if you get a pitch more in the heart of the plate, your batting average jumps up dramatically,” Coggin said. “We keep up with how many chases we have in a game, so we’re really trying to limit that. Because that really puts a lot of pressure on the pitcher to throw strikes. You can’t defend a walk, and you can’t defend a homer. It’s like they say in the movie Moneyball, it’s not necessarily how you get to first base, as long as you get there.”

For head coach Wes Johnson, Coggin’s hiring was a no-brainer.

The two coached together at Mississippi State in 2016, and in the years that passed, Johnson knew he was the man he wanted for the job.

“I knew I was going to be the pitching coach, and if you’re going to do that, you truly need a guy who can run an offense,” said Johnson, who brought in Coggin from Kentucky after a three-year stint with the Wildcats.

“We (Mississippi State) had the best offense in 16 years, last year, during the regular season, and Kentucky had the best offense in the SEC and didn’t have anybody drafted,” Johnson said. “We knew we needed to recruit to this ballpark here, so I felt like he would really be good at running the offense.”

No less than three current Major Leaguers–Oakland’s Brent Rooker, Cleveland’s Myles Straw, and Tampa Bay’s Nate Lowe–vouch for his credentials.

"I owe Coach Coggin an enormous amount of credit for my growth and success as a hitter. His extensive knowledge of the swing is extremely hard to find, and would be incredibly valuable to any hitter,” Rooker said upon Coggin’s hire. His relationships with recruits and players are second to none and will no doubt aid in the building and sustained success of any program."

Of the current Bulldogs finding that out, senior Corey Collins has seen a big jump in his game.

During his first three seasons with Georgia, a .283 average his freshman year stood as his top mark. Last year, Collins batted .267 with just six home runs and 20 RBIs.

Entering this weekend’s series against Ole Miss, Collins is thriving as the team’s leadoff hitter, batting .388 with 12 home runs and 33 RBIs.

“I think there’s been a slew of guys (who have improved), but I think if you look at Corey Collins, he’s really done an awesome job,” Coggin said. “I really trust his swing decision. That’s important in professional baseball, too. They put a lot of stock and emphasis on that, especially in the draft. A lot of it is your experience, too. The longer you play in this league, you face a lot of really good pitchers, play in a lot of really big-time environments, and you just get better every single year you go. But we work on it every day, no question.”

Collins is certainly grateful.

“One of the things he harped on early was, I don’t care who’s right, I just want what’s right. That man just likes to win,” Collins said. “He’s a winner, and when you have respect for someone like I have for Coach Coggin, it just makes you want to come out to the yard every day and learn. For someone like him who I know puts in so many hours and cares so much about his job, it’s just a breath of fresh air to have a coach like that who wants the best for you.”

Coggin jokes that working with Condon may be the easiest job he’s ever had.

“Like my old high school coach said, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” Coggin laughed about Condon, one of the favorites for the Golden Spikes Award, thanks to hitting .482 with 24 home runs and 52 RBIs.

“Day-to-day conversations with Charlie are more about just keeping his swing sharp,” Coggin said. “He’s a really bright young man, so most of the time when it comes to things like approach and game-planning versus a hitter before he goes to the batter’s box.”

Coggin has worked with some pretty good hitters before. Besides the previously mentioned trio of Rooker, Straw, and Lowe, his tutelage of former Mississippi State star Jake Mangum stands out.

Mangum captured the league batting title and became the first Mississippi State player to win SEC Freshman of the Year, and the first freshman to win the C Spire Ferriss Trophy, which is awarded to the best college baseball player in Mississippi. Mangum would go on to become the SEC’s all-time hits leader and helped the program to back-to-back trips to the College World Series in 2018 and 2019.

‘A lot of the best hitters I’ve coached, they know what information they need, and Charlie is one of those guys. He knows what information he wants, whether it’s the description of the guy’s pitches, how they are, and the usage of his pitches,” Coggin said. “Most of the time it’s day-to-day swing maintenance, making sure we keep his swing sharp and prevent a bad habit from starting, hopefully. Other than that, it’s just a lot of approach stuff. Most of the time, I ask him what information he does want more so than giving him a lot of information.”

Projected by many pre-draft experts as perhaps the top pick in April’s Major League Draft, Coggin believes Condon can be as good as he wants to be.

“You don’t say this very often, but he’s a better human being than he is a ball player, which is really hard to say. I think at the major league level, he could win a gold glove at first base or the outfield,” Coggin said. “I’ve coached a gold glove first baseman (Lowe), I’ve coached a gold glove center fielder in Myles Straw. For sure he (Condon) could play three average, or above-average positions in the major leagues. The thing about him, is he’s still got room to put some more weight on his frame, because he’s still really lean. But the power is just so undeniable. But it’s his makeup. Not only is he really skilled, but it’s his makeup that makes him really special.”

Before the Bulldogs added a single player to the transfer portal, Coggin hit the video.

What kind of players would fare the best at Foley Field? Coggin wanted to find out for himself.

“Our ballpark can definitely play offensive, especially early in the year when you get more of a northern wind when it blows out,” he said. “So, I studied all the innings the last two years at Foley Field, where offenses scored three or more runs, and was like, alright, how are the runs being scored? That includes opponents and Georgia.”

What he soon learned dictated the route he and Johnson would go.

“We went after more power, guys we thought who could hit double-digit home runs. You’ve got to have a good defensive catcher, a good defensive shortstop, and a good defensive center fielder. You’ve got strong guys up the middle defensively,” Coggin said. “But other than that, we went after power bats who have proven track records of hitting.”

Johnson smiled at the recollection.

“Me and that guy watch hours and hours of film, and that’s one of the things you need if you hire a guy to run your offense; he’s a tireless worker,” Johnson said. “When we did it, I asked him, Will, do you think you can get this guy’s swing here? If he said yes, I was excited.”

Considering the Bulldogs are 22-2 in 24 home games at Foley Field, it appears the right decisions were made.

“You have to be great at home, so if you can dominate at home, then compete and survive on the road, then you can make the postseason every year. So, you have to be great in your ballpark, and we’re built for our ballpark. The results thus far have shown that,” Coggin said. “When I was at Kentucky, it was a bigger ballpark, so we had more speed and defense. But we didn’t hit many home runs. I knew coming here, and coaching here, that you can have big power guys, and that’s what we went with.”

Coggin credits his boss for making his job easy.

“It’s been great. Coach Johnson, obviously, has a very infectious personality. He’s a positive, fun person to be around,” Coggin said. “You can either have a negative mindset or a positive mindset, and it’s fun to be around guys with positive mindsets. It’s a lot more fun way to live and play. He’s also a really intelligent hitting guy, too. I bounce a lot of ideas off him, too. But we’re a team, no question about that. It’s not about who’s right, it’s what right.”