If anybody at Arkansas baseball had approached NC State junior outfielder and designated hitter Terrell Tatum while he was at Houston High in Collierville, Tenn., he would have considered them.

That’s only natural.

His father Terry Tatum played football as a running back for the Razorbacks from 1982-85, and his older brother by the same name spent a year with the Hogs baseball program in 2013.

“I’ve always wanted to do my own thing, I would say, but if they would have come knocking on my door, I definitely would have had it as an option in the back of my mind,” Tatum noted. “But no one from there came looking for me.”

Arkansas’ loss was NC State’s gain. Tatum is hitting .321 with 11 homers and 35 runs batted in and has stolen 15 bases this year, and he was named first-team All-ACC.

“Tremendous person with an unbelievable amount of ability,” NC State baseball coach Elliott Avent said of Tatum.

But don’t expect Tatum to make this series personal.

“Not at all,” Tatum said. “It doesn’t really bother me. I don’t think much of it.”

That doesn’t mean that Tatum hasn’t appreciated how fate has brought him to Fayetteville for the first time in eight years.

“If someone would have told me four years ago when I started this journey that to get to Omaha you guys have to go through Arkansas, I would have told them, ‘You were lying,’” Tatum noted.

NC State will send junior righthander Reid Johnston to the mound on Friday for the 6 p.m. first pitch on ESPNU. Johnston went 8-2 this year with a 3.90 earned run average in 14 games, including 10 starts. He’s thrown a career-high 87.2 innings, allowing 72 hits and 21 walks while striking out a career-best 86.

What has been noteworthy has been Johnston’s ability to pitch deep into games. In his last 10 starts, Johnston has gone at least six innings in all of them and pitched into the seventh in nine of them. Four times he has pitched into the eighth, and in his last two starts he went eight full innings.

It’s not unusual for Johnston to prove reliable. In his three full seasons for the Pack, he has thrown at least 64.2 innings each time and has a 21-5 record in that time and an ERA below 4.00 each year.

“He’s been doing that for a long time,” Avent said. “Very steady, non-emotional person who competes very well. You might not see it outwardly as much, sometimes, but great competitive spirit.”

Tatum noted that Johnston’s teammates are confident when he takes the mound.

“He’s one of the most consistent guys that I’ve played with,” Tatum said. “He’s one of the most consistent guys that I’ve seen come through this school. For me, to know that Reid’s going to go out there, I know that we are going to have a chance to win the ballgame.”

There will likely be more than 10,000 fans at Arkansas’ Baum-Walker Stadium in what should be a rowdy environment.

“Playing in front of no fans is the hardest thing to do,” Avent added. “All baseball players want to play in front of crowds. You’d rather them pulling for you than against you, but you still want the crowd there. I think it’s going to be something they are going to look forward to.

“There are going to be some jitters early, but you got to settle into the game. That’s why the maturity of our team and the leadership of our team will hopefully take over there.”

That crowd is likely to get especially excited when Arkansas ace pitcher Kevin Kopps comes to the mound from the bullpen. Used frequently and in a variety of ways, Kopps is 12-0 in 31 games and also has 11 saves. He’s thrown a team-high 79.2 innings and allowed just 43 hits and 15 walks while striking out an eye-popping 120 batters.

His ERA: a microscopic 0.68. He’s only allowed six runs all year.

“For him to come out of the bullpen every time that he is called upon to shut teams down is unbelievable,” Tatum acknowledged.

“What he has done has been unbelievable, amazing, but you can’t look at a you are going to play in the postseason and look at one player,” Avent added. “They got a great ball club. They got a lot of good pitchers. This isn’t just going to be against Kevin Kopps, it’s going to be against a great Arkansas team.”

Tatum though expects a loose Wolfpack squad.

“No one expects us to come out of this Super Regional, so there’s no pressure on us,” Tatum noted. “We are just here to play baseball, play the game that we know, that we love, and have as much fun as we can.”

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