Someone explain OOC baseball scheduling

[bulldogcountry1]

I am probably oversimplifying things in my head, but I don't see what's so hard about scheduling some decent regional teams. Is it that hard getting teams to come to DNF? Is it expensive?

Looking at last year's RPI, here are some options inside the top 125:

SLU
USM
Ark State
UAB
Samford
Southeast MZ State
MTSU
Central Ark
Memphis
Tenn Tech


We used to play USM and Memphis twice. Now, only once. We have played most of these teams at some point in the last few years or will play them this year, but not enough. This doesn't even mention the countless northern teams who have no choice but to play on the raod the first month of the season. I know coaches don't have a crystal ball to see how good teams will be next year. Arizona being as bad as they were last year was an exception, and it burned us a bit. That's really nobody's fault. All the SAWC games are inexcusable, though. Teams that are >200 RPI year in and year out shouldn't even be considered. As cerebral as Cohen is, you would think he would be better at playing the scheduling game by now.

You leave yourself no room for error playing it this way. It's easy to say, "Just win the ones we are supposed to, and it will work out." Well, even so-so teams tend to have one good ace that can beat you on a given night, and you can bet that opponent will save that guy for us. I've seen it hundreds of times. Some of these teams would rather go all to beat us on a Tuesday than rest their pitchers for a conference weekend.

[engie]

This is being beaten to death in the other schedule thread...

This year was a perfect storm that led to a very bad nonconference schedule. Cohen pulled out of the Minute Maid Classic, which most of us are agreeing was a bad decision in hindsight, and the tournament in New Orleans we were scheduled to be in(the reason he pulled out of the MMC IMO) was cancelled. So, we essentially had to find 2 weekends worth of new games at the very last minute. That still doesn't make the schedule for this year OK -- as there was obviously still some poor planning involved.

[Todd4State]

It's pretty straight forward because you call a team up or vice versa and you agree to play. Where it gets tricky is making sure both teams have an opening where it will work out, and so teams try to lock up each other a few years ahead. We know who we are playing next year already. If teams cancel on you within a year, you may have to scramble and you might end up with either a schedule that is too easy or too hard. We just happened to end up with too easy this time.

I'm ok playing any of those teams listed although UAB MSU drop down in the near future. I would like to avoid playing USM more than once if at all possible. We do need to make sure that we play at least a couple of northern schools like Army or Nebraska because sometimes the committee places an emphasis on that as silly as that sounds. The West Coast has some really good teams and a lot of them play a different style that we may see in a regional if we play a west coast team.

Tulane is another team that is rebuilding right now that will be better in the future and they would be another good local option.

[Todd4State]

Next year we play in a tournament in Los Angeles including UCLA and USC. We are also playing Oregon- not sure if it's in Starkville or Eugene, but I think they are coming to us.

[Todd4State]

Also, once you get past the first four weeks Ole Miss, USM, Memphis, and South Alabama are all respectable teams. When Biloxi gets things going we'll play some good teams there as well in the future.

[bulldogcountry1]

And why is the Sunday game at 4:30 the next two weekends?

[bulldogcountry1]

This is being beaten to death in the other schedule thread...


Anything to get a Stansbury thread off the front page.

[messageboardsuperhero]

Next year we play in a tournament in Los Angeles including UCLA and USC. We are also playing Oregon- not sure if it's in Starkville or Eugene, but I think they are coming to us.

And that will be a very good schedule against intriguing teams that will help our RPI- I'm looking forward to it.

[Intramural All-American]

And why is the Sunday game at 4:30 the next two weekends?

I don't know for sure, but I would assume the other two teams here those weekends will be playing earlier on Sunday. Like Marshall and Alabama A&m will play the first game Friday and then again Sunday around 1.

[MsStateBaseball]

Oregon is in Starkville next year, then in 2017 meeting them somewhere warm...like Arizona or Cal in tournament.

Must play Memphis, South Alabama every year for alumni support and tons of recruits go to games when we play there. Very important we continue to play them.

Cohen simply wants to play a lot of homes games for the fans period. A lot of teams like a Memphis will want to play home and away. Cohen don't want that at the beginning of the season so he gets the lesser teams to come in and pay them. So we don't have to go to them, they have to play us at home.

Our schedule would be a lot better but we would have to play at somewhere. We will do more of that in 2016.

[dawgs]

So people hate cake walk OOC schedules in baseball, but the suggestion of playing 1-2 mid tier OOC P5 programs in football is heresy? Got it.

[messageboardsuperhero]

So people hate cake walk OOC schedules in baseball, but the suggestion of playing 1-2 mid tier OOC P5 programs in football is heresy? Got it.

Not even remotely a good comparison. Unless you really feel like you have a shot at making the 4 team playoff, there really isn't much of a benefit to playing good competition OOC. For us in baseball, OOC scheduling is much more important than it is in football most years because of seeding/hosting for the NCAA tourney.

That said, it really doesn't matter because we're going to play a P5 team every year OOC in football every year, starting in 2016.

[State82]

So people hate cake walk OOC schedules in baseball, but the suggestion of playing 1-2 mid tier OOC P5 programs in football is heresy? Got it.

Because 6 wins guarantees you a bowl no matter who you beat to get to 6 wins. And bowling is critical in football. No such guarantee in baseball. Even some wins are detrimental to your postseason hopes in baseball. Completely different animal.