Luke The Drifter said:

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TheBonifaceOption said:

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Luke The Drifter said:

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After last season, we needed wins wherever we could get them. But you hope that one of your February weekend opponents can turn out a strong season. Unfortunately, all of our early season weekend opponents turned out to be duds.

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Oakland, Penn, and Tennessee Tech should be replaced with Rice, Texas Tech, and TCU (or even ACU or DBU).

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We left the SWC for a reason.

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Why do so many believe we are too good to play teams in our former confreces?
That was over 30 years ago, Id much rather play Rice, Tech and TCU than Penn, Tennesse tech and Oakland.

LJF78 said:

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Luke The Drifter said:

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TheBonifaceOption said:

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Luke The Drifter said:

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After last season, we needed wins wherever we could get them. But you hope that one of your February weekend opponents can turn out a strong season. Unfortunately, all of our early season weekend opponents turned out to be duds.

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Oakland, Penn, and Tennessee Tech should be replaced with Rice, Texas Tech, and TCU (or even ACU or DBU).

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We left the SWC for a reason.

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Why do so many believe we are too good to play teams in our former confreces?
That was over 30 years ago, Id much rather play Rice, Tech and TCU than Penn, Tennesse tech and Oakland.

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You are also assuming TCU, BU, tech, etc. would be willing to play us on the weekends. Maybe they would, but I'm sure they would want a home-and-home series...and I doubt we have any interest in doing that.

TheBonifaceOption said:

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We cancelled vs #41 UTSA and vs #2 tu.

All this "just win" talk is nice and all but there will be losses. SoS and RPI important factors in the evaluation of teams with similar records. Idk why thats so controversial.

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1. "We" didn't cancel the games, they were cancelled due to weather.

2. You are right that SoS and RPI matter, but looking at our opponents for the remained of the year, SoS and RPI are not something that should be a high concern.

3. While SoS and RPI matter, so do games that allow you develop your pitching and depth, without feeling like every game is a tight affair. With the weekend series we have in the SEC it is nice for the players to take a bit of a breather on Tuesdays and work on depth. Three games against a top 25 rpi club washes out one against a lessr club for sure.

McInnis said:

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Tennessee Tech (rpi 244), Penn (201) and Oakland (265) haven't done us any favors. In the future I wish we would schedule teams like Baylor or Texas State in non conference. But then I guess they would want home series in return and problem is, Olsen sells out no matter who the opponent is.

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I think most college baseball coaches in the SEC/Big 12/ACC (and other places) are sympathetic to the northern schools needing to play in the south the first month of the season. Most of these schools wouldn't be able to play any games at home and would be forced to go to a Bahamas or South Florida tournament with a bunch of other northern schools.

The easy answer is to get rid of the RPI idiocy and come up with a rating system that makes sense. One that rewards good wins, penalizes bad losses, and does little to nothing else. If you play an overall weak schedule, it won't hurt you PER SE, but you're going to be behind the 8-ball when it comes to ratings/rankings compared to other schools that played a "better" schedule and won some games. Likewise, playing a "tough" schedule and getting the dog crap beat out of you won't help either.

A&M should NEVER take a hit for playing PVA&M. The Alabama schools shouldn't be penalized for playing AlaA&M and the Miss schools shouldn't be penalized for playing MissVallSt.

Ideally, you want to schedule a northern school who you can beat three times...but then goes on to win a lot of games and possibly win their league. Some years that works out well for you...other years, not so much.

This year we played Tennessee Tech (239), Penn (196), and Oakland (264). Had we instead scheduled the best teams in their respective conferences, we would have played:

SE Missouri (59)
Yale (171)
Wright State (138)

That wouldn't have been a ton better, but we still likely would have gone 9-0 vs. those teams and have a few more RPI points in the calculation. They still, however, would have all been Q4 games.

The best mid-major teams this year are:

10 - Southern Miss
11 - Oregon State
14 - Coastal Carolina
17 - Missouri State
22 - Liberty
25 - UC-Santa Barbara
29 - Jacksonville State
31 - Gonzaga
32 - UAB
38 - Texas State
39 - Arkansas State
43 - East Carolina
44 - St. Joseph's
47 - UTSA
49 - High Point
52 - Miami (OH)
54 - The Citadel
55 - Kent State
56 - UL-Lafayette
57 - South Florida
58 - California Baptist
59 - SE Missouri
60 - Troy

Can you tell me that a year ago when we were finalizing the 2026 schedule anyone knew those teams would be quality mid-major teams this year? It's such a crapshoot.

Who would have thought sweeping LSU would pull us down so much?

Here is what our non-conference weekend series have looked like the past few years:

2025
213 - Elon
31 - Cal Poly
172 - New Mexico State

2024
114 - McNeese
215 - Wagner
152 - Rhode Island

2023
176 - Seattle
106 - Portland
219 - Northern Kentucky

2022
267 - Fordham
56 - Penn
130 - Santa Clara

2021
101 - Xavier
245 - New Mexico State
55 - Samford