The State of College Baseball remains strong, but there are some changes that those that love the sport should still consider.

SHARE







The State Of College Baseball: 2015 Edition

Some of the very things our great country was founded on seemed radical and pretty much impossible to accomplish, at the time. But at some point in history those small ideas came to fruition and changed the landscape of our country, and the world.

Now, we’re not comparing the creation of the United States to college baseball, but it’s an analogy worth using when it comes to the proposal West Virginia coach Randy Mazey put forth to the nation’s coaches this past spring. Mazey, who has coached at TCU, East Carolina and Clemson before landing at West Virginia, made a lot of waves with his North-friendly proposal that called for the college baseball season to not only be moved back, but pushed back to the point where the season would start in late April or early May, and the College World Series would push into the month of August.

Some coaches around the country, especially in the Southern and Western parts of the country say, ‘No way, that’s crazy.’ But Mazey’s proposal has significant support in the Midwest and Northern half of the country, and he also has the support, to an extent, of some of the most influential figures in the NCAA and American Baseball Coaches Association.

“I think it’s an important piece to continue to talk about. Adjusting (the season) in some way is beneficial, and the more we can play in good weather, the better it is for baseball,” said NCAA Division I Baseball Committee chairman Dave Heeke, also athletic director at Central Michigan. “There are a number of factors that would need to be addressed with having a different model, such as the real-time cost to programs, and how that fits into the fact that we already have programs at such a disadvantage from a resource standpoint. And in turn, that could hurt our game.”

Craig Keilitz, the new head of the ABCA, has a very unique perspective about Mazey’s proposal. Keilitz, like his father and long-time ABCA head Dave Keilitz, is a graduate of Central Michigan. However, Craig spent several seasons in the Wake Forest athletic department and then served as athletic director at High Point before joining the ABCA.

Keilitz has been in the North and South, and sees the tangible benefits of the season moving back, and the potential road blocks it also provides.

“There are a lot of factors in moving the season back. Is it better to play baseball in the summer? And how does that fit into our academic calendar? Internships? Things like that,” he said. “If we’re giving out $35 a day for meals, what if there’s an additional 90-day period added to the season? That takes some real work financially to figure out.

“With that said, I’m in favor of moving the season back to an extent, but how it works in our model is the question,” he continued. “We’re a long way from going that route, but I would absolutely like to play baseball in the summer. I love that Randy brought this forward with some passion, and I want our coaches to continue to think about this.”

ABCA executive director Craig Keilitz is in favor of moving the season back to some extent. (Kendall Rogers)

Mazey has not formally brought this proposal to the NCAA decision makers, but with some influential figures in favor of some aspect of change, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the proposal, or at least pieces of it, gains some serious traction the next few years. But the proposal would likely meet stiff resistance from the Southeastern Conference and at least some members of the Atlantic Coast Conference, though the Northern wing of the conference would staunchly support it, and power programs such as Virginia and North Carolina are at least open to the idea.

As for my take on the matter, I’m partly in favor of Mazey’s proposal. Do I think we should push the season back to the point where it begins in late April and potentially in May? Absolutely not. This is, after all, a college sport where the attendance of college students is critical to atmospheres in some parts of the country. We do not want to become minor leagues, Part II. Am I OK with the season being pushed back to mid-March or thereabout? Absolutely, yes. At the end of the day when this debate gets serious with the governing bodies at the NCAA, I suspect you’ll see a vast majority of decision makers come in somewhere in the middle on the issue, and that’s assuming some of the financials of the change can be worked out. While I would aim for a mid-March start date, colleague Aaron Fitt is in favor of a late March, potentially early April, start date.

Speaking of finances …

On The Road To Two Divisions?

With this latest proposal combined with many of the financial challenges athletic departments and universities continue to face, what is the future of college baseball? Keilitz mentioned it in the above text, but moving the season back could further extend the financial gap between the haves and have nots, although some Northern schools could benefit in the long term from increased attendance thanks to better weather. There has been a significant gap between the major powers and everybody else for a while anyway, because a hefty amount of college programs are still not even up to par with the standard 11.7 scholarships.

So, let’s ponder this question for simple discussion sake: Is the end game in college baseball eventually splitting into two divisions?

“I think that’s a fair thought, but there hasn’t been much discussion on having subdivisions just yet,” NCAA director of baseball Damani Leech said. “I think a lot of people would have concerns about where that’s kind of taken Division I football, and that separation. Then you start to think about, where would that have put the Stony Brooks and Kent States the past few years?

“Two years ago we did an analysis and the number of programs at 11.7 were small, but there were a lot in that 9-10.7 counters type of range. They weren’t quite fully funded,” he added. “There are a lot of programs out there still giving out three to four scholarship equivalencies and I know those coaches don’t want more aid. With that said, there are athletic directors around the country trying to be more broad based and wanting to throw more resources at programs, so it’s an interesting issue and debate.”

In college football, the haves and have nots are separated by divisions, primarily for financial reasons. In college basketball, there’s a significant number of teams, but again, you’re dealing with identical scholarship situations across the board, and not so much the financial discrepancy some football programs deal with.

Baseball is a mix of those two sports. Baseball has the vast number of teams that basketball possesses, but also has many of the same financial differences of football programs, say teams in the SEC, Big 12, Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC versus the Southland Conference in football. While, for instance, Texas, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, UCLA and others might have vast recruiting and other budgets in baseball, many programs are not only still trying to get to 11.7 scholarships, but also attempting to A) have an adequate recruiting budget and B) pay quality assistants enough to create some continuity within the program. Those aren’t easy challenges to overcome to just be competitive, much less be a name on the national stage.

It really makes you ponder the idea that maybe college baseball should morph into a system where, let’s say the Power Five joins forces with the Big West, Conference USA, Sun Belt, West Coast Conference, Big South, Mid-American Conference, Missouri Valley Conference and other conferences to form a single division, while other conference schools that can afford to increase scholarships to a greater amount being allowed to hop on to one of the “Division I-A” leagues where they can. The remaining programs would then be placed into a “Division I-B”, where the scholarship total could even be lowered to accommodate the serious financial constraints. Programs, as they grow, of course, would have the ability to move up to the Division I-A group.

Gender equity is another major prong and potential road block to this idea as well, but given the opportunity to stay where we are now with the same teams and 11.7 scholarships or give teams the opportunity to increase to 18-20 scholarships, while also moving to a new, exclusive division, which option would you take?

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

This option isn’t on the NCAA’s radar at this point, but I did go through with a sample size of 20-25 head coaches, and a vast majority of them supported the general premise.

I’m not 100 percent on board with the idea just yet. After all, the stories of Stony Brook, Kent State and others are part of what makes college baseball so special. But it’s worth a serious offseason discussion and would certainly lead to more elite talents heading to college programs.

Speaking of scholarships …

Hard Cap On Scholarships? Not Anytime Soon

One of the most pressing concerns from many coaches about the current state of college baseball is how the 11.7 scholarships mixes in with financial and need-based aid. While plenty of programs receive almost no need-based aid and strictly adhere to the 11.7, others either have the luxury of an in-state tuition, lottery, etc./need program, or, in some instances, private institutions have a significant amount of need-based aid that simply dwarfs some of their national, and even, conference counterparts.

As frustrating as this can be to some coaches, don’t expect any changes to come down the pike anytime soon.

“The short answer is no,” Leech said about the potential of hard-capping scholarships. “We already have a rule, and that’s 11.7 athletic aid, and we really haven’t had a lot of people put it up for a great debate just yet.

“I think today, we’re in a culture where the environment is how can we add more resources to these players, not less, and doing something like that would be a pretty hard sell right now,” he continued. “I get the issue that programs have with those advantages, but right now, it’s very tough to craft.”

With the NCAA not likely to soon address this brewing dilemma, it will be the responsibility of the individual conferences to take a holistic approach to the issue. As recently as last summer, at least one or two coaches were considering proposals to hard-cap scholarships in a pair of major conferences, but neither coach went through with it. As dissension grows, will coaches step up to the table and take matters into their own hands?

The Rest Of The State

• Looking back at the Mazey proposal, something that would have to change if that were to happen is the timing of the Major League Baseball draft. That certainly would be a significant hurdle. But in the meantime, there are some different things potentially in the works in terms of draft timing, often a bitter subject with many coaches. MLB is considering moving the draft back a few days in the week and potentially hosting the event in Omaha the couple of days prior to the start of the College World Series. That discussion is still in its infant stages, but something to keep an eye on moving forward. High-ranking MLB executives Kim Ng and Chuck Fox were among those present in North Carolina this week for a meeting with Leech, Keilitz, Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin and USA Baseball officials. One major topic on the agenda for the meetings was the timing and location of the draft.

• Speaking of sore subjects, plenty of coaches, fans and media alike continue to push for the NCAA selection committee to eventually seed 1-16 in the postseason, just like our softball counterparts. The softball format tends to promote more cross-country, intriguing matchups, while the baseball format is more focused on regionalization. Having that regionalization was a great idea when we were trying to grow the sport of college baseball, but it is now time to turn the page and truly seed 1-16. If the 1 vs. 16 matchup is Michigan and UCLA, so be it. More coaches around the country would rather see that than seeing a hefty amount of teams in the same state routinely matched up in super regionals to save travel and create more regionalization.

“There are years when had we matched teams up 1-16, we would’ve had a heavy toll on teams having to travel across the country, and we could end up with a lot of conference vs. conference matchups in super regionals,” Leech said. “We have a series of votes now to determine the 1-8 seeds and to go 9-16 as well, that would add more to the process and make it more difficult. The difference between all of those teams is razor thin to begin with.”

There currently are no plans to start seeding teams 1-16, but Heeke left the door potentially open for the near future.

“While we are always open to new opportunities, we’re also conflicted in some ways,” Heeke said. “The current game and tournament is robust and vibrant and there’s a tremendous amount of drama. I think it’s great focus on having games and teams in different regions, and I don’t think it’s currently broken. But, that doesn’t mean things can’t be adjusted.”

• ESPN’s college baseball coverage was once again a big hit this season, and the ESPN family of networks did a terrific job of extending a swath across the country. ESPN featured 73 percent of teams in Division I Baseball. ESPN also featured 953 exclusive games over 153 days and had around 3,000 hours of live game coverage. Meanwhile, 41,552,000 fans watched college baseball on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU throughout the spring, while 160,600,000 live minutes were viewed on the ESPN3 (WatchESPN) platform.

• The new flat-seam ball was a huge hit throughout the regular season, but the ultimate test came in the College World Series in anything but a hitter-friendly ballpark. Well, college baseball fans, breathe a sigh of relief because the home run is back. 15 homers were hit during the 2015 CWS, far surpassing the three homers there were hit in Omaha in 2014. Other past totals include: 2013 (3), 2012 (10) and 2011 (9). Of course, those totals pale in comparison to the 32 slugged at Rosenblatt Stadium in 2010, the final year at the historic ballpark. But a real measure of balance has returned to the game.

• The American Baseball Coaches Association did a survey of all college baseball head coaches on the new flat-seam ball, and the results were very positive. For instance, 42.1 percent of coaches had a highly favorable opinion of the new ball, 40.8 percent had a favorable opinion, 14.5 percent felt there was no difference and 2.2 percent not favorable and 0.4 percent highly unfavorable. Furthermore, 79.8 percent of respondents felt the new ball improved the game either significantly or somewhat, while 83.3 percent of coaches felt there was no need for further changes at this time.