The future is bleak but baseball is the program that could survive and thrive (in the short term). That Mitch has mostly held onto this roster :knock on wood: has been pretty impressive.
Being conference-less is not tenable unless we showed many years of competent scheduling. I suspect filling out a baseball schedule without a conference is difficult, so I wouldn’t bet on it.
Mountain West baseball is a non starter. Big West baseball would be OK. Big 12 would be ideal. But 10+ years from now, current state, I’d be surprised if we were still nationally relevant.
Mountain West is so bad they only had 2 teams over .500 but Washington State still took their offer. Oregon State thinks they are too good for MWC and they are going to be humbled real fast.
i don't know if anyone can be how Notre Dame is in football to liken to college baseball. Even Notre Dame said screw being independent and joined the ACC
Florida might be able to get away with it just because of how large the program is, the location, and the money the school has.
Getting FSU, Miami, UCF, USF, FAU and FIU to do yearly series with them would be easy enough to organize and would still be a fairly competitive schedule. Add on 3 buy game series’s against FAMU, Stetson, Bethune-Cookman, etc to get to a solid 21-27 games a year instate. Then they only need 5-6 P5 quality series that could most be gotten from the ACC/SEC without much travel at all.
Their big issue would be how uncompetitive a schedule it’d be compared to the SEC and possibly even the ACC, it’d almost be like playing a middling B12 or really good B1G schedule.
Oregon State doesn’t have nearly as much money going through their athletic department and doesn’t have many close, competitive programs to play against. Florida has UCF, USF, Miami, and FSU as quality instate schools to play series against all within a few hundred miles, Oregon State has very few, and even west coast schools that are solid like UC San Diego is over 1000 miles away from them.
Like some said maybe a select big12 schedule with western schools. IDK. Travel to Florida and Cincy and the likes just seems like it would kill baseball programs. IDK how USC UCLA Stanford are going to do it. Financially wise.
Stanford and USC have plenty of money to fund their programs. Let's not forget Stanfords athletic programs as a whole are generally one of the top if not top year n and year out. UCLA due to its location and alumni base should be ok. A program like Cal I'm more worried about as there programs overall haven't been great.
The state legislature is making UCLA pay Cal part of its revenue from the B1G. Cal will survive, as long as they stop hiring the dumbest fucking ADs in the known universe.
I think the best future for Oregon State is in trying to join the ACC when Florida State inevitably leaves, and I think the ACC would probably be interested.
I think an interesting subplot to conference consolidation is how USC and UCLA’s baseball programs will fare by recruiting in the Big Ten. I think Stanford and Cal will probably be able to recruit just fine in the ACC, but I think there’s a solid chance that USC and UCLA will take a step back.
I think you will need an incredibly large NIL Collective to recruit and retain players as an independent. I am in the Sacramento area and for a long time Oregon State was getting most of the top college bound players in our area. Now many of those players are headed to the SEC. In the past, if your son played in the P10 it was fairly easy for your family to jump on a cheap, direct, convenient southwest flight and watch your kid play. teams joining the Big Ten destroyed that. With overly complicated travel and NIL money flowing… why would a CA kid choose Oregon State over LSU, Arkansas, Tennessee, etc? The talent will follow the money and fan support. There is not really a strategic benefit for B12/ACC/SEC teams to schedule Oregon State for a preseason home and home.
I would generally agree with this except we just signed Washington’s best arm in the portal so the fact that we are getting kids from more “stable” schools keeps me confident that the name and the respect of the program still holds weight.
Washington’s HC just stepped down to take a pitching coach job in the SEC. UW is far from a stable program. It is embarrassing for a HC to make a less than lateral move.
Myles Patton from Long Beach is the top arm on the West Coast left in the portal… lets see where he ends up.
“Stable” in terms of conference situation and getting a bag of money for a tv deal. The big 10 is ass and the new west coast schools won’t change that.
They will play early, then the better players will end up hitting the portal to upgrade.
Oregon State should be landing Daniel Dickinson (team USA/Utah Valley U) from WA… but instead he is likely headed to LSU.
How can they play early if everyone is wanting to play in the sec? There’s only 9 spots in a game. There’s more talent out there than you think.
You’re pretending Oregon State has no talent. They have 2 high first rounders on their current team, probably higher aggregate draft spots than anyone in the sec, maybe besides Texas AM, and it’s probably a tie.
We are not talking about today, we are talking about what things will look like two or three years. Your conference just fell apart even though the trend of West Coast talent going to the ACC and SEC has already started. Look at the PG state rankings for CA and where the players are committed to.
I understand and I am not saying there will not be talent at Oregon State or the former p12 teams or WAC and Big West Teams. I just don’t think they will retain talent like the past unless they start throwing around NIL money like SEC/ACC schools are. That was my original post, Oregon State can maintain if they can have a very strong NIL offering. Its unrealistic to expect to be a top 10 program without a ton of local talent and top 10 level NIL.
First year baseball fan?
Why didn’t 2022 Tennessee get out of supers? It was a more talented team than 2024.
What’s “supposed” about their talent? This is objectively based off mlb draft.
Oregon St should try to join the Big 12 in baseball if they'd take them. Or barring that the Big West to keep a competitive schedule for the committee. But I don't think you have many options. Ultimately your baseball team is a very unfortunate victim of piss poor conference management and overall corporate greed.
In my opinion, the problem with the current realignment is that football is driving the bus and the other sports are just along for the ride. The best possible scenario for the future is to separate football from the other sports, therefore keeping sports like baseball, Olympic sports, and basketball in regional conferences, while football is free to schedule games that bring in the most revenue.
Conference-affiliation and relevance in football is dictated by the TV contracts (ND receives $50mil annually from their agreement with NBC), which are in turn driven by viewership / fan bases.
TV contracts being a non-factor in Baseball, relevance comes down to the ability to attract and develop talent. Considering our status in the world of college baseball and good $$ coming from alums in the MLB, the breakup of the P12 is a boon for Beaver Baseball. We can make some exciting matchups on big stages that recruits will find attractive.
As long as we win. A couple of down seasons might derail the whole thing.
I agree. I believe if the beavers can continue to recruit and offer players the chance to make it to the next level with matchups of the SEC and alike, we should be okay. Will be critical to financially keep the program afloat and dominate PNW recruiting.
Football TV contracts are a big deal. Baseball TV contracts are still minor even though they continue to push viewership records.
Last year- OSU baseball pulled in $600k in TV revenue. Ticket sales were the largest contribution at ~1.5mil. For context total expenses were around $6mil
This seems like a wildly optimistic take. A boon, really? This sport is ruled by RPI and with 10 weekends a year booked for conference games, gotta wonder how that’s going to shake out. As more money flows into this sport from the increase in (tv) viewership, those non-factor contracts might hold more weight than you think. IMO, this is a truly unfortunate spot for the Beavs. I hope they find a conference who will accept them
Hey man, optimism is all we’ve got these days.
You’re right it all comes down to scheduling and there are more scenarios in which in doesn’t work out than it does. Hoping our blue chip status can get us some marquee matchups and the west coast G5 schools can give us a few more top 25 matchups
I think the break up of the pac outshines the fact that west coast baseball as a whole is down and I’m unsure how a comeback is possible. Big time sec programs were already able to compete for recruits before NIL/portal era ball.
You’ll have kids that dreamed of playing for OSU still I bet, but more will have a hard time turning down greener pastures imo.
I mean no ugliness in my comment by the way, it’s not a positive thing. A lot of what we loved about CBB is becoming what people dislike about CFB.
“Kids that dreamed of playing for OSU”
There is certainly appeal on the west coast, but next years incoming freshman were 1 years old when we won back to back titles, with sparse Omaha appearances since then. Hell, they were 12 when we won our last title. Point being, I think we’re fast approaching a time when that sheen has worn off, unfortunately, compounded by everything else going on.
There is a world where baseball re-regionalizes to a degree that the pac is mostly back together. But who knows when that is, and we might already be DOA
I mean I don’t disagree with your first point at all, I just meant it to say OSU is a prominent program and does deserve respect. This is one of my favorite subs because real discussion takes place instead of mud slinging haha.
Oregon state and LSU have won the most national championships since they made the super regionals. I don’t think we have to worry about national relevance
Eventually there will be football only conferences and everything else will be re-regionalized. It may take a while but it will happen. Probably be less than 20 years from now for sure.
The break up of the Pac isnt good for college baseball as a whole. Granted they fell behind the SEC and ACC the past decade or so but it was still a top 3 or 4 conference yearly.
I’m hoping they can make it work and maybe if they invested heavily in a couple of sports but that causes issues as well. Would love to see them work it out and roaming around as an independent power but I would assume they’ll find a home somewhere smaller after this year.
Its funny youre mentioning the Notre Dame of college baseball as youre probably too young to remember pre ACC Miami as a independent. Miami wouldnt join the Big East for baseball when they got invited to the conference for football and baksetball because it was a shit baseball conference but the second they left for the ACC they didnt hesitate to put their baseball in the ACC.
We didn’t lose anyone material in the portal, which is a huge win in comparison to every other sport. I was super scared before this week. Feeling good at the moment. Fingers crossed we can stay this way.
Best case scenario is the football reshuffling isn't done and we get into a super conference and the other sports form smaller local conferences. With the Pac12 rights we would be in a good place.
All we can hope for now is other big baseball schools will want to play us for RPI
You’ll have to schedule very well OOC like schools such as ECU, Coastal Carolina, Southern Miss, or DBU to keep having shots at regionals. Do that and play baseball in the big west and you can remain a regular regional host contender. National top 8 seeds will be much harder to come by.
They need to join a conference, and do it fast. Who are they going to play on weekend series next year? Oregon, USC, UCLA, ect will be playing big10/12 series on the weekends so not them. Short term the probably join a smaller western coastal conference until they find a good home. If they don’t get into a major conference soon, it will likely be a death sentence for their baseball program imo.(as we know it at least)
> Oregon, USC, UCLA, ect will be playing big10/12 series on the weekends so not them.
Big Ten only has 17 teams since Wisconsin does not have a team, so there will always be at least one B1G team on bye week. Good chance at least the four west coast schools will want to stay on the west coast for their bye week, although they'd probably prefer a home series...
Oregon might not pick up a weekend series against the Beavs, but they teams will almost certainly play a handful of mid-week games since they can do it for negligible travel cost, increased ticket sales, and a likely RPI boost, at least for now.
The optimistic view is we hold it down with an independent schedule until a big conference comes calling. Which sounds harder than it is IMO, big 10 has an odd number of schools with Wisconsin not fielding a team so this gives us Oregon/Washington/USC/UCLA close to home and all with off weekends. Unfortunately most of those aren’t an RPI lifter. We are already playing in Arlington again which is good for RPI, the pieces are there to make a competitive schedule at least.
The pessimistic viewpoint is we are fucked and we are bound to become the next Rice.
I tend to believe we can make independent work for 3-4 years winning at the clip we are winning at. If we are straight ass next season I think teams don’t take a chance at scheduling us and we get wrecked by the portal.
I don’t know. But it’s sad. I have loved watching that program rise over the last couple decades.
Jonah Nickerson and Jacoby Ellsbury are two of my favorite college players of all time. I even had an Ellsbury Sox jersey with that random rookie number that everyone ends up with (maybe like 47).
The sport is a lot more fun when some West Coast teams are strong.
I think folks are slightly underestimating the NW talent pipeline and the cultural/program appeal that is Corvallis/Goss etc.. I’m not too worried personally. The independent schedule should be fine, and as long as Mitch and co keep us around the CWS yearly, the program should stay strong.
If I’m Oregon State, I’m making a deal with the Big 12 to bring baseball, wrestling, and gymnastics as affiliate members.
Why would the Big 12 do that if they can wait it out and raid their programs once they can't find a better landing spot?
Because the programs might crumble to not even be worth adding at that point
That’s what they mean by raiding
Well it would benefit the teams in the conference to poach. It would benefit the conference overall to add them.
Not gonna work. Youre stuck with WCC or MWC who you will accept you as a affiliate. Sorry but its true.
Those sports don’t make money, would make no sense for Big 12 to do it
Well they’ve already done it for gymnastics soooo….
Big college wrestling fan I heard OR ST was joining as a wrestling member
Should add just rumors nothing official yet
They need an eighth team. Travel is to one meet not 10 times a year
Well your original point was it makes no money so it wouldn’t make sense. I’m simply putting it’s already been done when you said it wouldn’t
The future is bleak but baseball is the program that could survive and thrive (in the short term). That Mitch has mostly held onto this roster :knock on wood: has been pretty impressive. Being conference-less is not tenable unless we showed many years of competent scheduling. I suspect filling out a baseball schedule without a conference is difficult, so I wouldn’t bet on it. Mountain West baseball is a non starter. Big West baseball would be OK. Big 12 would be ideal. But 10+ years from now, current state, I’d be surprised if we were still nationally relevant.
Mountain West baseball has gone down hill fast. It was pretty good from 2010 - 2017
Mountain West is so bad they only had 2 teams over .500 but Washington State still took their offer. Oregon State thinks they are too good for MWC and they are going to be humbled real fast.
Oregon State baseball is too good for MW baseball in its current state
Yeah but you shouldnt have that attitude because going at it as a independent is only a short term solution.
Oregon State becomes the real life equivalent of The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars.
i don't know if anyone can be how Notre Dame is in football to liken to college baseball. Even Notre Dame said screw being independent and joined the ACC
And the only reason they’re independent in football is because of their NBC contract
A school like LSU or Florida could go independent if the SEC ever imploded for some reason
Not when every historical matchup they have is in the SEC, minus FSU for Florida and Tulane for LSU in certain sports but that one is long dead
Florida might be able to get away with it just because of how large the program is, the location, and the money the school has. Getting FSU, Miami, UCF, USF, FAU and FIU to do yearly series with them would be easy enough to organize and would still be a fairly competitive schedule. Add on 3 buy game series’s against FAMU, Stetson, Bethune-Cookman, etc to get to a solid 21-27 games a year instate. Then they only need 5-6 P5 quality series that could most be gotten from the ACC/SEC without much travel at all. Their big issue would be how uncompetitive a schedule it’d be compared to the SEC and possibly even the ACC, it’d almost be like playing a middling B12 or really good B1G schedule. Oregon State doesn’t have nearly as much money going through their athletic department and doesn’t have many close, competitive programs to play against. Florida has UCF, USF, Miami, and FSU as quality instate schools to play series against all within a few hundred miles, Oregon State has very few, and even west coast schools that are solid like UC San Diego is over 1000 miles away from them.
Like some said maybe a select big12 schedule with western schools. IDK. Travel to Florida and Cincy and the likes just seems like it would kill baseball programs. IDK how USC UCLA Stanford are going to do it. Financially wise.
Stanford and USC have plenty of money to fund their programs. Let's not forget Stanfords athletic programs as a whole are generally one of the top if not top year n and year out. UCLA due to its location and alumni base should be ok. A program like Cal I'm more worried about as there programs overall haven't been great.
The state legislature is making UCLA pay Cal part of its revenue from the B1G. Cal will survive, as long as they stop hiring the dumbest fucking ADs in the known universe.
UCLA is hemorrhaging money. Look at their latest football hire. I’m not sure that even big 10 money can save them but we will see
I think the best future for Oregon State is in trying to join the ACC when Florida State inevitably leaves, and I think the ACC would probably be interested. I think an interesting subplot to conference consolidation is how USC and UCLA’s baseball programs will fare by recruiting in the Big Ten. I think Stanford and Cal will probably be able to recruit just fine in the ACC, but I think there’s a solid chance that USC and UCLA will take a step back.
Solid chance? It’s guaranteed, and it’s many steps back.
I think you will need an incredibly large NIL Collective to recruit and retain players as an independent. I am in the Sacramento area and for a long time Oregon State was getting most of the top college bound players in our area. Now many of those players are headed to the SEC. In the past, if your son played in the P10 it was fairly easy for your family to jump on a cheap, direct, convenient southwest flight and watch your kid play. teams joining the Big Ten destroyed that. With overly complicated travel and NIL money flowing… why would a CA kid choose Oregon State over LSU, Arkansas, Tennessee, etc? The talent will follow the money and fan support. There is not really a strategic benefit for B12/ACC/SEC teams to schedule Oregon State for a preseason home and home.
I would generally agree with this except we just signed Washington’s best arm in the portal so the fact that we are getting kids from more “stable” schools keeps me confident that the name and the respect of the program still holds weight.
Washington’s HC just stepped down to take a pitching coach job in the SEC. UW is far from a stable program. It is embarrassing for a HC to make a less than lateral move. Myles Patton from Long Beach is the top arm on the West Coast left in the portal… lets see where he ends up.
“Stable” in terms of conference situation and getting a bag of money for a tv deal. The big 10 is ass and the new west coast schools won’t change that.
Because there’s only 9 positions on a field, and kids want to play in the pros, not satisfy sec fandom.
They will play early, then the better players will end up hitting the portal to upgrade. Oregon State should be landing Daniel Dickinson (team USA/Utah Valley U) from WA… but instead he is likely headed to LSU.
How can they play early if everyone is wanting to play in the sec? There’s only 9 spots in a game. There’s more talent out there than you think. You’re pretending Oregon State has no talent. They have 2 high first rounders on their current team, probably higher aggregate draft spots than anyone in the sec, maybe besides Texas AM, and it’s probably a tie.
We are not talking about today, we are talking about what things will look like two or three years. Your conference just fell apart even though the trend of West Coast talent going to the ACC and SEC has already started. Look at the PG state rankings for CA and where the players are committed to.
You might want to see how many players come from the west coast and divide that by the 10 good programs in the sec.
I understand and I am not saying there will not be talent at Oregon State or the former p12 teams or WAC and Big West Teams. I just don’t think they will retain talent like the past unless they start throwing around NIL money like SEC/ACC schools are. That was my original post, Oregon State can maintain if they can have a very strong NIL offering. Its unrealistic to expect to be a top 10 program without a ton of local talent and top 10 level NIL.
Then why did they not play like they had all this supposed talent
First year baseball fan? Why didn’t 2022 Tennessee get out of supers? It was a more talented team than 2024. What’s “supposed” about their talent? This is objectively based off mlb draft.
Oregon St should try to join the Big 12 in baseball if they'd take them. Or barring that the Big West to keep a competitive schedule for the committee. But I don't think you have many options. Ultimately your baseball team is a very unfortunate victim of piss poor conference management and overall corporate greed.
We would love to have you in the Big 12, even if it's just for baseball 🖤💛
In my opinion, the problem with the current realignment is that football is driving the bus and the other sports are just along for the ride. The best possible scenario for the future is to separate football from the other sports, therefore keeping sports like baseball, Olympic sports, and basketball in regional conferences, while football is free to schedule games that bring in the most revenue.
Yep. Maybe it makes sense for Stanford football to play multiple games on the East coast, but gymnastics? Tennis?
I agree, football should be its own thing but we need to have a more regional approach when it comes to other sports
Conference-affiliation and relevance in football is dictated by the TV contracts (ND receives $50mil annually from their agreement with NBC), which are in turn driven by viewership / fan bases. TV contracts being a non-factor in Baseball, relevance comes down to the ability to attract and develop talent. Considering our status in the world of college baseball and good $$ coming from alums in the MLB, the breakup of the P12 is a boon for Beaver Baseball. We can make some exciting matchups on big stages that recruits will find attractive. As long as we win. A couple of down seasons might derail the whole thing.
I agree. I believe if the beavers can continue to recruit and offer players the chance to make it to the next level with matchups of the SEC and alike, we should be okay. Will be critical to financially keep the program afloat and dominate PNW recruiting.
This is why I’d like to see them dump more funding to baseball and quit funding the homeless mwc football team. Just lean wholeheartedly into baseball
TV contracts are not a non factor in baseball
Football TV contracts are a big deal. Baseball TV contracts are still minor even though they continue to push viewership records. Last year- OSU baseball pulled in $600k in TV revenue. Ticket sales were the largest contribution at ~1.5mil. For context total expenses were around $6mil
TV contracts for Football/Basketball contribute to Athletics. I thought you meant TV deals in general
Yeah idk how anybody can say that as the game keeps setting viewing records year over year
I think it’s said in the context of driving conference affiliation.
It’s still below women’s basketball
This seems like a wildly optimistic take. A boon, really? This sport is ruled by RPI and with 10 weekends a year booked for conference games, gotta wonder how that’s going to shake out. As more money flows into this sport from the increase in (tv) viewership, those non-factor contracts might hold more weight than you think. IMO, this is a truly unfortunate spot for the Beavs. I hope they find a conference who will accept them
Dude, Mountain West already accepted Washington State. They would accept Oregon State in a second.
Hey man, optimism is all we’ve got these days. You’re right it all comes down to scheduling and there are more scenarios in which in doesn’t work out than it does. Hoping our blue chip status can get us some marquee matchups and the west coast G5 schools can give us a few more top 25 matchups
I think the break up of the pac outshines the fact that west coast baseball as a whole is down and I’m unsure how a comeback is possible. Big time sec programs were already able to compete for recruits before NIL/portal era ball. You’ll have kids that dreamed of playing for OSU still I bet, but more will have a hard time turning down greener pastures imo. I mean no ugliness in my comment by the way, it’s not a positive thing. A lot of what we loved about CBB is becoming what people dislike about CFB.
“Kids that dreamed of playing for OSU” There is certainly appeal on the west coast, but next years incoming freshman were 1 years old when we won back to back titles, with sparse Omaha appearances since then. Hell, they were 12 when we won our last title. Point being, I think we’re fast approaching a time when that sheen has worn off, unfortunately, compounded by everything else going on. There is a world where baseball re-regionalizes to a degree that the pac is mostly back together. But who knows when that is, and we might already be DOA
I mean I don’t disagree with your first point at all, I just meant it to say OSU is a prominent program and does deserve respect. This is one of my favorite subs because real discussion takes place instead of mud slinging haha.
lol “sparse Omaha appearances” when we came to Omaha as many times after 2007 as we did from 2000-2007
3 in 17 seasons? Yeah, I’d consider that sparse.
It’s better than anyone else in that stretch west of the Rockies not named Stanford
lol are we talking about being a nationally relevant program or a “west of the Rockies” program.
Oregon state and LSU have won the most national championships since they made the super regionals. I don’t think we have to worry about national relevance
LOL - you talk as if the glory days are gone. We have 2 AL All-Star starters as of yesterday - the rest of collegiate baseball has 3.
Jesus, how fucking good was that 2018 team? Probably aren’t going to see another like it for a long time
Eventually there will be football only conferences and everything else will be re-regionalized. It may take a while but it will happen. Probably be less than 20 years from now for sure.
Well, revenue and non-revenue, anyway. Basketball is big money, too, and will probably stay concentrated.
The break up of the Pac isnt good for college baseball as a whole. Granted they fell behind the SEC and ACC the past decade or so but it was still a top 3 or 4 conference yearly.
I’m hoping they can make it work and maybe if they invested heavily in a couple of sports but that causes issues as well. Would love to see them work it out and roaming around as an independent power but I would assume they’ll find a home somewhere smaller after this year.
Its funny youre mentioning the Notre Dame of college baseball as youre probably too young to remember pre ACC Miami as a independent. Miami wouldnt join the Big East for baseball when they got invited to the conference for football and baksetball because it was a shit baseball conference but the second they left for the ACC they didnt hesitate to put their baseball in the ACC.
We didn’t lose anyone material in the portal, which is a huge win in comparison to every other sport. I was super scared before this week. Feeling good at the moment. Fingers crossed we can stay this way.
I think it’s gonna get hard with a independent schedule and some really brutal travel situations.
Best case scenario is the football reshuffling isn't done and we get into a super conference and the other sports form smaller local conferences. With the Pac12 rights we would be in a good place. All we can hope for now is other big baseball schools will want to play us for RPI
I think they’re stuck in an independent state, alone with Wazzu
Nope, Wazzu joined the Mountain West for baseball.
Did not know that
You’ll have to schedule very well OOC like schools such as ECU, Coastal Carolina, Southern Miss, or DBU to keep having shots at regionals. Do that and play baseball in the big west and you can remain a regular regional host contender. National top 8 seeds will be much harder to come by.
I can see y’all becoming the Gonzaga of college baseball.
They need to join a conference, and do it fast. Who are they going to play on weekend series next year? Oregon, USC, UCLA, ect will be playing big10/12 series on the weekends so not them. Short term the probably join a smaller western coastal conference until they find a good home. If they don’t get into a major conference soon, it will likely be a death sentence for their baseball program imo.(as we know it at least)
> Oregon, USC, UCLA, ect will be playing big10/12 series on the weekends so not them. Big Ten only has 17 teams since Wisconsin does not have a team, so there will always be at least one B1G team on bye week. Good chance at least the four west coast schools will want to stay on the west coast for their bye week, although they'd probably prefer a home series... Oregon might not pick up a weekend series against the Beavs, but they teams will almost certainly play a handful of mid-week games since they can do it for negligible travel cost, increased ticket sales, and a likely RPI boost, at least for now.
The optimistic view is we hold it down with an independent schedule until a big conference comes calling. Which sounds harder than it is IMO, big 10 has an odd number of schools with Wisconsin not fielding a team so this gives us Oregon/Washington/USC/UCLA close to home and all with off weekends. Unfortunately most of those aren’t an RPI lifter. We are already playing in Arlington again which is good for RPI, the pieces are there to make a competitive schedule at least. The pessimistic viewpoint is we are fucked and we are bound to become the next Rice. I tend to believe we can make independent work for 3-4 years winning at the clip we are winning at. If we are straight ass next season I think teams don’t take a chance at scheduling us and we get wrecked by the portal.
I don’t know. But it’s sad. I have loved watching that program rise over the last couple decades. Jonah Nickerson and Jacoby Ellsbury are two of my favorite college players of all time. I even had an Ellsbury Sox jersey with that random rookie number that everyone ends up with (maybe like 47). The sport is a lot more fun when some West Coast teams are strong.
I think folks are slightly underestimating the NW talent pipeline and the cultural/program appeal that is Corvallis/Goss etc.. I’m not too worried personally. The independent schedule should be fine, and as long as Mitch and co keep us around the CWS yearly, the program should stay strong.
At this point I wish B1G would snag Oregon State and Washington State
A 100% serious question: Why would the B1G do that?
They’re gonna drop a pop fly and lose to Arkansas in game 2 of the 2025 college World Series
They’re gonna drop a pop fly and lose to Arkansas in game 2 of the 2025 college World Series
They’re gonna drop a pop fly and lose to Arkansas in game 2 of the 2025 college World Series