Quote Originally Posted by BB30 View Post
Exactly, UF sits right in the middle of probably the best baseball state in the country. Within 2 -3 hours of Gainsville you have Tampa, Orlando, Bradenton, Miami and a list of other great baseball hotbeds. That should be the easiest job in college baseball. You have a host of minor league teams and spring training facilities which also equates to more professional scouts in the area. As a player you have the option to stay 2-3 hours from home, play with the best talent college baseball has to offer, and be seen just about everytime you play. You also more than likely get to go to school for free if you have decent grades coming out of highschool. This isn't even bringing in the fact that some of the best JUCO baseball programs in the country are in Florida. You have Chipola, Santa Fe CC, Miami Dade JC, St. Johns River CC, and a host of others to pull a guy here and there from.
All of these also benefit Texas A and M with a huge talent pool to pull from and great JUCOS.
Yes, we have a decent JUCO system here but not near what Texas and Florida have to offer nor do we have the elite highschool talent comparable to Florida or Texas. We have a few kids every year that are draft guys but not the numbers necessary to fill an entire roster with.
It is going to take a good mix of guys for us to consistently be considered elite. All in all, I don't know if it is possible for us to field a World Series team every single year when we don't have the talent pool in our backyard to pull from. Everything is not Cohen's fault I assure you. Now getting swept in your backyard on Super Bulldog weekend does suck and should not happen often but A&M was hot and we did not play our best ball. We are still fairly young especially on the mound and we are going to have weekends where it doesn't click. We have to have quality starts from Hudson and Sexton every time they step on the mound against teams like that to have a chance to win the series.
Great post. Agreed on all.

Also should be noted -- the average degree from UF is worth ~ $120-150k more over the working life of an individual than the average degree from MSU. A gap that is actually a lot narrower than I thought it was. A Vanderbilt degree on the other hand is worth about an extra $12-15k out of the gate. A number that swells to well over a half million dollars over a working lifetime.

This stuff might not matter as much in football and basketball in general terms -- but it's stuff that many baseball families which are going to share in footing the bill to go to school(at MSU anyway) -- is going to look at.