Coach Todd Butler watched Chandler Sanburn pitch and saw someone he didn't recognize – angry, swollen, foreboding. He looked, Butler said, like someone inflated with 20 gallons of water.
"He was all blown up and big and really over-energized," Butler said. "And he was pitching over-energized."
On the bus ride returning from that season-opening trip to McNeese State, Butler told Sanburn to be himself on the mound, not some caricature of a flame-throwing reliever.
"He's a brilliant young man," Butler said. "He could have gone to West Point. He decided to come here.