I live in NOLA. We’ve got a good group of UM folks who go to Prytania Bar for every game, and the bar is happy to have us. They accommodate us with the sound and play the victors after every TD, etc. Prytania Bar is about a block from the streetcar line coming from downtown through the garden district and a 7-10 min Uber from the hotel district. Plenty of actually good NOLA stuff to do in that area after the game too. Tipitina’s or Bon Temps for music e.g.
Forming a league with the Pac12, Big 12 and the ACC North is quite a different proposition (and would have strikingly better odds of success) than a Big Ten breakaway strategy. However, I'm skeptical, to put it lightly, that ADs and college presidents would have the political, financial, or organizational wherewithal to pull that off. That crowd is not known for innovation. The only tectonic changes in college sports in my lifetime have all been matters of (1) revising existing structures, and (2) forced hands. The CFP, which is basically the Bowl System 2.0, came about when Congress starting making some noise about intervening and the conferences figured out how to make additional revenue while excluding the mid-majors, Super-League style. Shift 2, Conference realignment, had periodically popped up over the last half century, abd suddenly hit the major conferences in successive waves as ADs/Presidents became terrified of being left behind in lower revenue conferences. Shift 3, NIL, was literally forced upon the NCAA by legislatures, and even it is merely a slight reworking of a practice that has taken place under the table since the beginning of our fair institutions.
A new baseball league outside of the NCAA is neither a revision of the existing structure nor do I believe any AD/President would feel particularly compelled to join at this point. The type of tectonic change you are talking about does not come about simply because it makes sense (or dollars and...), or is preferable from the status quo (even far if preferable). I venture to say there is no precedent in the modern era for something like this.
M simply cannot wait for this unlikely alternative reality to form around it. Sustained baseball relevance is no different than sustained success in any other college sport. It's not a secret formula. It will stem from M committing to competing in the system as it stands by spending the gobs of cash flowing from the revenue sports, while pushing for systemic changes on the margins that improve their lot. Louisville - a commuter school in Kentucky with no baseball tradition - mustered the cash to raise and sustain a competitive program out of whole cloth. M has more cash at hand, a better tradition, a Nike contract, famous baseball alums, a history of racial activism (Moses Fleetwood Walker and Branch Rickey), etc. etc. M can and should commit the resources to competing. To borrow a phrase from an erstwhile Louisville booster, "Better ingredients. Better baseball."
If, as it has been reported, M failed to match or approach Clemson's offer, it's very disappointing. Resources should not be the question here. If M matched and he still left because he thinks Clemson is a better job, I get it.
Plus, the NCAA baseball tournament and CWS are a helluvalotta fun and have future revenue sport potential. I'm bullish on the future of the CWS/tourney, if they can, as you say, manage to broadcast the event on something other than ESPN's rugby/cricket/KBO platform.
You make the argument above that it didn't make sense to make a run at Bakich to stay because we compete in a mid-major conference and should resign our program to that mid-tier status. On the roundtable you have repeatedly called for the Big Ten to leave the NCAA in baseball. Above, your post says "Talk of the Big Ten joining with other northern conferences to stem this tide, either by threatening to leave the NCAA, doing so, or hosting a second season over the summer, has thus far only amounted to that."
That's packing it in. That's leaving the big dance to host a small dance. That would kill the relevance of this program to anyone outside of driving distance of Ann Arbor.
The reason I am responding to this in my once-in-a-blue-moon lurker post, is that MGoBlog's obsession with this half-baked idea oddly dominates its baseball discussions and it's unfair to our program, fans, players, etc. Our program regularly competes with the best programs in the country and we do it OUR way (with overlooked players, that manufacture runs, and aggressively leverage scoring opportunities). I love college baseball and I love Michigan and I love MGoBlog. But I get annoyed at the point where this, one of the most popular of all M fan outlets, repeatedly tells M fans that nothing matters because we'll never win in the current system. That's simply false, it's deflating to our fanbase, and at worst, it's informing our athletic department's expectations for itself.
Seth: I'm generally a fan of yours, but I've heard this take many times from you over the past few years and you are very, very far off on this one. Concluding that Michigan can't compete with other major programs in the current atmosphere because of the sport's alleged bend to the south doesn't hold water. Is Oregon State a warm weather southern school? What about Louisville, who had no history to speak of prior to McDonnell and has rattled off the best 10-15 season stretch in recent memory? What about recent CWS champ UVA? Is C-ville warm is February? What about 2022 CWS team Notre Dame? And there was a school in 2019 that made a run to the CWS finals from the north... the name slips my mind...
I don't think it's helpful to repeatedly promote a "pack it in" take on this blog and the roundtable when our program clearly can compete and has competed on a national level. M has been to three straight NCAA tournaments, advanced to the CWS is 2019, and has taken out the No. 1 overall seed twice in recent years. Players want to play in the tournament and CWS. Recruiting would TANK if that's not an option at M.
Do schools in the south have recruiting advantages? Sure. That's not unique to baseball. Are the southern schools throwing their weight around in a way that I wish Warren would do for our conference? YES. Is the ACC a better baseball conference than the Big Ten? Abso-frickin'-lutely. But these are issues to be fixed or overcome, similar to M's obstacles in every sport. Not reasons to take our ball and go home.
Bakich is one of the best coaches in the game, and has decided that he wants to make more scratch and give himself the best opportunity to win championships. Clemson is a better place for him to do that right now. But there is a coach out there for whom Michigan is a better place to compete and make $. I have no interest in our school communicating to that coach and our players that we have no chance to compete for the CWS. They don't believe that because the facts say otherwise.
Brian's generally right that the practice of pulling kids' scholarships in a new coaching regime is ethically dubious.
However, these player departures don't yet prove that UK is committing this practice - Cal will probably force his own hand in the near future because of the size of his incoming class, but I know that at least two of these players are 'special cases' where they aren't being booted in quite the way Brian characterizes.
AJ Stewart quit the team last year for a brief time in the middle of the season and was only allowed back on after a team vote. If one of UM's role players quit the team in the middle of a season, was dealt with during the season, and then was politely given a list of options that didn't include returning in the off-season, I think many UM fans would probably be okay with that.
Jared Carter is merely not applying for a 5th year of eligibility from a medical situation from his junior season. This seemed to be the plan all along as he went through Senior Day last year at Rupp when Gillispie was still the coach.
Donald Williams is the only suspect departure. Frankly, I know very little about his case, only that he certainly wasn't on the same talent level as Cal's incoming class. Perhaps this a 'dirty cut', but given that the others in this round of departures are special cases, it wouldn't surprise me if Williams' departure is a similar case.
All in all, I think Brian's right about the practice of cutting players - just not totally sure it's happened yet at UK, though it probably will in the very near future.
Perhaps the better question is "Will anyone reach AC, Braylon, Terrell-level heights under the new offense?"
I only found one 1,000 yd season by a WR under RichRod at WVU - 1,006 by Chris Henry in 2003, which seems miraculous given that it was done with only 41 receptions (and probably while drunk).
While Mathews might not be the ideal candidate, most future "#1's" will probably not have AC/Braylon numbers as long as we run the spread. If the #1 tradition is to exist at all, it will have to be awarded for intangibles or leading the team in receiving at something to the tune of 600-800 yds.
This article seems to confuse the talent argument, not clarify it.
The argument for those of us who claim that Michigan has talent (or had talent this season) isn't that our top-ranked recruiting classes necessarily translate into top on-field talent. The phenomenon of talented players never 'making it' in D1 is common to all teams, just like the phenomenon of unheralded players making a substantial impact.
Instead, the argument is that we at least have enough talent to outclass several of the teams we played this year. In several games that we lost this season, we should have won based on the fact that we outclassed the team on the other sideline by three degrees. This is not the case with OSU, ND, MSU, or even Illinois. But NWestern, Purdue, and certainly Toledo are games that we should win because there are few players on their sideline who have the talent to play at Michigan.
The mix of better-than-advertised/not-as-good-as-expected is common to all schools. Look at any major program and this is the case. Not to mention, this has been the case in the previous 40 winning seasons of UM football.
No one will contend that this team has top 25 talent, but this is definitely not a team with the type of dearth of talent that explains 9 losses in a weak conference.
Recent Comments
I live in NOLA. We’ve got a good group of UM folks who go to Prytania Bar for every game, and the bar is happy to have us. They accommodate us with the sound and play the victors after every TD, etc. Prytania Bar is about a block from the streetcar line coming from downtown through the garden district and a 7-10 min Uber from the hotel district. Plenty of actually good NOLA stuff to do in that area after the game too. Tipitina’s or Bon Temps for music e.g.
Forming a league with the Pac12, Big 12 and the ACC North is quite a different proposition (and would have strikingly better odds of success) than a Big Ten breakaway strategy. However, I'm skeptical, to put it lightly, that ADs and college presidents would have the political, financial, or organizational wherewithal to pull that off. That crowd is not known for innovation. The only tectonic changes in college sports in my lifetime have all been matters of (1) revising existing structures, and (2) forced hands. The CFP, which is basically the Bowl System 2.0, came about when Congress starting making some noise about intervening and the conferences figured out how to make additional revenue while excluding the mid-majors, Super-League style. Shift 2, Conference realignment, had periodically popped up over the last half century, abd suddenly hit the major conferences in successive waves as ADs/Presidents became terrified of being left behind in lower revenue conferences. Shift 3, NIL, was literally forced upon the NCAA by legislatures, and even it is merely a slight reworking of a practice that has taken place under the table since the beginning of our fair institutions.
A new baseball league outside of the NCAA is neither a revision of the existing structure nor do I believe any AD/President would feel particularly compelled to join at this point. The type of tectonic change you are talking about does not come about simply because it makes sense (or dollars and...), or is preferable from the status quo (even far if preferable). I venture to say there is no precedent in the modern era for something like this.
M simply cannot wait for this unlikely alternative reality to form around it. Sustained baseball relevance is no different than sustained success in any other college sport. It's not a secret formula. It will stem from M committing to competing in the system as it stands by spending the gobs of cash flowing from the revenue sports, while pushing for systemic changes on the margins that improve their lot. Louisville - a commuter school in Kentucky with no baseball tradition - mustered the cash to raise and sustain a competitive program out of whole cloth. M has more cash at hand, a better tradition, a Nike contract, famous baseball alums, a history of racial activism (Moses Fleetwood Walker and Branch Rickey), etc. etc. M can and should commit the resources to competing. To borrow a phrase from an erstwhile Louisville booster, "Better ingredients. Better baseball."
If, as it has been reported, M failed to match or approach Clemson's offer, it's very disappointing. Resources should not be the question here. If M matched and he still left because he thinks Clemson is a better job, I get it.
Plus, the NCAA baseball tournament and CWS are a helluvalotta fun and have future revenue sport potential. I'm bullish on the future of the CWS/tourney, if they can, as you say, manage to broadcast the event on something other than ESPN's rugby/cricket/KBO platform.
You make the argument above that it didn't make sense to make a run at Bakich to stay because we compete in a mid-major conference and should resign our program to that mid-tier status. On the roundtable you have repeatedly called for the Big Ten to leave the NCAA in baseball. Above, your post says "Talk of the Big Ten joining with other northern conferences to stem this tide, either by threatening to leave the NCAA, doing so, or hosting a second season over the summer, has thus far only amounted to that."
That's packing it in. That's leaving the big dance to host a small dance. That would kill the relevance of this program to anyone outside of driving distance of Ann Arbor.
The reason I am responding to this in my once-in-a-blue-moon lurker post, is that MGoBlog's obsession with this half-baked idea oddly dominates its baseball discussions and it's unfair to our program, fans, players, etc. Our program regularly competes with the best programs in the country and we do it OUR way (with overlooked players, that manufacture runs, and aggressively leverage scoring opportunities). I love college baseball and I love Michigan and I love MGoBlog. But I get annoyed at the point where this, one of the most popular of all M fan outlets, repeatedly tells M fans that nothing matters because we'll never win in the current system. That's simply false, it's deflating to our fanbase, and at worst, it's informing our athletic department's expectations for itself.
Seth: I'm generally a fan of yours, but I've heard this take many times from you over the past few years and you are very, very far off on this one. Concluding that Michigan can't compete with other major programs in the current atmosphere because of the sport's alleged bend to the south doesn't hold water. Is Oregon State a warm weather southern school? What about Louisville, who had no history to speak of prior to McDonnell and has rattled off the best 10-15 season stretch in recent memory? What about recent CWS champ UVA? Is C-ville warm is February? What about 2022 CWS team Notre Dame? And there was a school in 2019 that made a run to the CWS finals from the north... the name slips my mind...
I don't think it's helpful to repeatedly promote a "pack it in" take on this blog and the roundtable when our program clearly can compete and has competed on a national level. M has been to three straight NCAA tournaments, advanced to the CWS is 2019, and has taken out the No. 1 overall seed twice in recent years. Players want to play in the tournament and CWS. Recruiting would TANK if that's not an option at M.
Do schools in the south have recruiting advantages? Sure. That's not unique to baseball. Are the southern schools throwing their weight around in a way that I wish Warren would do for our conference? YES. Is the ACC a better baseball conference than the Big Ten? Abso-frickin'-lutely. But these are issues to be fixed or overcome, similar to M's obstacles in every sport. Not reasons to take our ball and go home.
Bakich is one of the best coaches in the game, and has decided that he wants to make more scratch and give himself the best opportunity to win championships. Clemson is a better place for him to do that right now. But there is a coach out there for whom Michigan is a better place to compete and make $. I have no interest in our school communicating to that coach and our players that we have no chance to compete for the CWS. They don't believe that because the facts say otherwise.
"Well... the zookeeper didn't execute..."