2015 Weekend Baseball opponents-weekend only

[MsStateBaseball]

Feb 13-15 Cincinnati and Miami OH
Feb 20-22 Alabama A&M and Marshall
Feb 27-M 1 Arizona and Samford
Mar 6-8 San Diego

Per David Murray on genespage.

[MsStateBaseball]

RPI's of opponents (sure someone would ask) 2014
Cincinnati - 163
Miami - 108
Alabama A&M - 289
Marshall - 232
Arizona - 199
Samford - 74
San Diego - 64

Arizona is supposed to be better in 2015. He doesn't say where we play San Diego, I assume at home.

[headcoach98]

We owe Samford a whooping.

[Mjoelner34]

Would love to get a home-and-home with USD or SDSU.

[messageboardsuperhero]

I still can't believe we dropped out of the Minute Maid Classic...

[HoopsDawg]

I don't get playing Alabama A&M. More harm than good.

[MsStateBaseball]

The SEC sched, I know we play Florida and not play Georgia. So if we play S Caro and say Vandy again, I can see why he pulled out of Houston. But I would play it, too good of recruiting and fan base not to play there.

[Todd4State]

San Diego is a good program and it would be very unlikely that Arizona is as bad as they were last year.

[MsStateBaseball]

We also cancelled the New Orleans tournament for 2015. I found that out months ago.

[messageboardsuperhero]

The SEC sched, I know we play Florida and not play Georgia. So if we play S Caro and say Vandy again, I can see why he pulled out of Houston. But I would play it, too good of recruiting and fan base not to play there.

I'm pretty sure we've played Vandy every year since 2007. We're long overdue for a break from playing them.

[messageboardsuperhero]

Also, we may be trying to play a bunch of home games for the last season in the current PDS? Who knows, that may or may not be playing a role in the decision to drop out of these tournaments... Just a thought.

[Todd4State]

Also, we may be trying to play a bunch of home games for the last season in the current PDS? Who knows, that may or may not be playing a role in the decision to drop out of these tournaments... Just a thought.

The bad thing about playing in tournaments is unless it's in Starkville, that means less home games.

I'm OK with doing a tournament OR a difficult opponent every year, but not both the same year and two tournaments away from Starkville is not good IMO. This year we have Arizona as our "interesting" opponent. We have fans that like to travel and have fun- but we also have fans that want to see the team in Starkville as well.

[Goat Holder]

We also cancelled the New Orleans tournament for 2015. I found that out months ago.

No....WE didn't cancel it. It appears the whole thing got cancelled, it's not on LSU's schedule either.

[Goat Holder]

I still can't believe we dropped out of the Minute Maid Classic...

Because we will have a young team and Cohen doesn't want us to get our asses kicked. He wants to experiment and have our best lineup ready for the postseason, like he always does. Common sense, and I don't see why our fans keep bitching about it.

[Goat Holder]

We owe Samford a whooping.

We already paid them back for 2012 in 2013. We beat their ass twice in the Polk's Classic.

[Goat Holder]

I don't get playing Alabama A&M. More harm than good.

If this is true that playing and beating someone HURTS you, then we need to blow up the damn RPI, because it's worthless.

I understand that playing good teams HELPS you, and it should. Playing shit teams should not hurt you though, unless you lose.

[maroonmania]

RPI's of opponents (sure someone would ask) 2014
Cincinnati - 163
Miami - 108
Alabama A&M - 289
Marshall - 232
Arizona - 199
Samford - 74
San Diego - 64

Arizona is supposed to be better in 2015. He doesn't say where we play San Diego, I assume at home.

Wow, looks like we have the Reds, Marlins, Diamondbacks and Padres all coming to the Dude. Cool!

[Todd4State]

Wow, looks like we have the Reds, Marlins, Diamondbacks and Padres all coming to the Dude. Cool!

That should boost our SOS.**

[Todd4State]

Because we will have a young team and Cohen doesn't want us to get our asses kicked. He wants to experiment and have our best lineup ready for the postseason, like he always does. Common sense, and I don't see why our fans keep bitching about it.

I agree with the part about experimenting. We won't be young though.

C- Collins So.
1B- Rea 5th year Sr.
2B- Heck- Sr.
3B- Britton- Sr.
SS- Holland- Jr.
LF- Brown- third year So.
CF- Robson- Jr.
RF- Vickerson- Sr.
DH- Humphreys- So.

If Robson doesn't make it back from injury, we'll probably use JUCO guy in the OF.

Rotation will likely be Fitts (SR.), Ross (5th year SR.), and one of the freshman phenoms from last year or Jesse McCord.

[Goat Holder]

We won't be young though.

True enough, although Cohen obviously thinks we'll be either less experienced or less talented than the teams in Houston, for whatever reason. I'm not really seeing many leaders on the squad next year. A lot of role players, just like this past year. I guess Rea COULD be a leader, but we expected it this season and it never came. We need the guy who can put the team on their back and carry them. The Vickerson or Renfroe type. And it needs to be a position player, not a pitcher.

[Todd4State]

True enough, although Cohen obviously thinks we'll be either less experienced or less talented than the teams in Houston, for whatever reason. I'm not really seeing many leaders on the squad next year. A lot of role players, just like this past year. I guess Rea COULD be a leader, but we expected it this season and it never came. We need the guy who can put the team on their back and carry them. The Vickerson or Renfroe type. And it needs to be a position player, not a pitcher.

I think it's more of what you said about Cohen experimenting. We don't want to be experimenting against a team like UCLA, Texas, and LSU because that's going to probably not going to end very well for us.

I think that playing a difficult schedule is noble, but it also doesn't really help us out all that much unless we were to win a vast majority of the games. And with really only four weekends to schedule weekend OOC, it's limited and it's real easy to overschedule if we're not careful or schedule a bunch of tournaments and then all of a sudden realize that we're home for only one weekend the entire month of Feb.

That's probably what happened- Cohen looked at the schedule and realized that we overscheduled and were away from Starkville for half the weekends- which is probably why we had to get Alabama A&M since I suspect we had to find some people last minute.

When we went to Omaha, we had a pretty manageable schedule- and Ole Miss had one this year as well. At the same time, I think a big reason why we didn't go to Omaha was because we lost to Arizona on the road compounded with losing to Holy Cross.

As far as the team and leaders itself- I agree that we don't appear to have a Hunter Renfroe type and probably won't have someone like that this year. I do think that we will be like Ole Miss was last year in that we have a ton of experienced players and more often than not when a team has that, they typically have a good year. Of course, the reason a team has a lot of seniors is because they aren't big time prospects usually- ie Hunter Renfroe types.