New Alabama baseball coach Rob Vaughn spent much of the last two days around his new program after its season-ending 22-5 loss to Wake Forest at the NCAA Tournament's Winston-Salem Super Regional.

Vaughn was a fly on the wall during interim coach Jason Jackson's player season exit interviews and was thrilled to see what he assumed from afar was better than advertised in person.

Vaughn won the last two Big Ten Coach of the Year honors and led Maryland to its first Big Ten championship in 2023. He knew from watching Jackson's SEC Tournament postgame press conferences that he needed Jackson on his staff.

Vaughn, 35, shared the same vision as Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne. The Crimson Tide (43-21) went 13-4 under Jackson before going 0-2 at the super regional, its first appearance since 2010.

Alabama has made Jackson, a pitching coach before taking on the interim tag amid a gambling investigation involving former coach Brad Bohannon, associate head coach with a two-year contact.

Vaughn, who has been at Maryland for the past 11 seasons, said it was very clear how Alabama has survived the adversity because of Jackson's leadership and the culture inside the program. He has to build on the culture, not create one, he said.

"I knew how talented he was as a pitching coach, but to look at the way he talked about his players, the way he communicated, the way he cared about them, how much he loved them," Vaughn said. "I just sat in those exit meetings and every kid that left gave him a hug and he said how much he loved them. That's what makes JJ who he is. You can take the skillset of developing pitchers and put it in one bucket, but the reason he's created what he's created is those things. When I saw that I sat down with Greg (Byrne) and said, 'We can't let this guy leave. This guy is too vitally important to what we're doing here.'"

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Vaughn ran into recruits in the upper half of the country at Maryland that were pursued by Alabama. He plans for Alabama to recruit nationally and cause headaches for other coaches like the Crimson Tide possibly did to him.

"This is the best conference in college athletics, especially when it comes to baseball," Vaughn said. "There's no doubt that talent matters. We're not going to sit here and say the right fit. If you throw 79 and you're the right fit, it's still not going to play. We're going to need talent. But at the same time, we're going to find people who believe what we believe. I think that's vitally important. The transfer portal, that's something we have to operate in. That's something we will, but that's not going to be at the expense of creating a whole new team year-in and year-out. We're going to establish a culture we want. You're going to have to build that with young kids and grow up in the program. ... We're going to use the transfer portal to supplement that."

Jerell Rushin is a recruiting reporter for the Tuscaloosa News and the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at jrushin@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @JerellRushin_.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama baseball coach Rob Vaughn on Jason Jackson: 'vitally important'