After last year's CWS run, baseball has a lot of enthusiasm down in FW. Record setting crowd of 6099 last night in the season opener.

Matt Purke, our lefty starter that passed up on Rangers 1st round offer out of high school a year ago, looked good in the first start.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/02/18/...ecord.html

Of the top of my head, I think the attendance is more than any TCU basketball game this year, although tonight's game with BYU and Jimmer Fredette is a sellout.

Baton Rouge also has a lot of enthusiasm for LSU baseball (about 11,000 at last night's game with Wake Forest), and i would love it if TCU played a series here so that i could go to those games.

Looking at your schedule, seems like the only real OOC stuff is against Big 12 teams like Texas Tech and Oklahoma. But the SEC plays pretty good ball too, so you guys should schedule some series with some schools just a little bit to the east of you ...

(02-19-2011 01:21 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Baton Rouge also has a lot of enthusiasm for LSU baseball (about 11,000 at last night's game with Wake Forest), and i would love it if TCU played a series here so that i could go to those games.

Looking at your schedule, seems like the only real OOC stuff is against Big 12 teams like Texas Tech and Oklahoma. But the SEC plays pretty good ball too, so you guys should schedule some series with some schools just a little bit to the east of you ...

Yep, I would say that the SEC does play pretty good baseball and with the biggest crowds and best baseball stadiums in the country. We have had a series with Ole Miss in recent times and hopefully more SEC teams on the way. This years big series in Ft. Worth will be against Cal-Fullerton. I would love to make the trip to Baton Rouge too.

A tough thing about getting SEC teams on the schedule is that a lot of those teams only travel for maybe one OOC series each year, which makes it tough to get home/home series scheduled.

This year for example
LSU - 0 OOC road weekend series
Arkansas - 1 road OOC weekend series (@ San Diego State)
Ole Miss - 1 road OOC weekend series (@ Houston) The rebs did play a home/home with TCU recently though.
Mississippi State - 0 road OOC weekend series
Kentucky - plays in a couple of OOC tournaments on the road, but no 3 game series (plus Kentucky really isn't that great, not worth going out of your way to schedule)
Auburn - plays in a OOC tournament on the road, but no 3 game series
Alabama - play in a OOC tournament on the road, but no 3 game series
Georgia - plays 1 road OOC series (@ Stetson) and a tournament in LA. Looks like Georgia could be one that TCU could have a easier time scheduling.
Vanderbilt - 1 road OOC series (@ San Diego)
Tennessee - 0 road OOC series
Florida - 0 road OOC series
South Carolina - 0 road OOC series

Of course, I completely understand why SEC teams schedule like this because baseball at many of these schools attract big time crowds and losing weekend home series means a big revenue hit for a sport that doesn't make money at most of the 250 or so D1 baseball programs. Plus there are a lot of baseball teams that are forced to play on the road early in the season, so scheduling OOC games at home is typically not a problem.

Teams like TCU (@ Texas Tech and Okie State this year), Rice (none this year, but they typically do have a west coast trip and 1 other), or Cal State Fullerton (@ TCU, @ LSU, @ Hawaii) typically play 2 or 3 road OOC series each year. That is somewhat uncommon for good baseball teams located in the south.

(02-20-2011 06:48 PM)tcufrog86 Wrote:  A tough thing about getting SEC teams on the schedule is that a lot of those teams only travel for maybe one OOC series each year, which makes it tough to get home/home series scheduled.

Good point.

WVU managed to do it with Mississippi State(2006-7), Auburn (2008-9), and LSU (2010-11)...

(02-21-2011 10:34 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  WVU managed to do it with Mississippi State(2006-7), Auburn (2008-9), and LSU (2010-11)...

You know we are talking about baseball....

Minor details. It's the same with football. Look it up...

(02-21-2011 02:50 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Minor details. It's the same with football. Look it up...

, but TCU has been able to get a couple of SEC teams to agree to home/homes for future schedules. Arkansas and LSU in the up coming years.

Vanderbilt is the only SEC team TCU has played in the Patterson era up until this point, unless I am forgetting games.

SEC teams, as a rule, don't like to travel for OOC games. It doesn't matter the sport...

(02-21-2011 06:29 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  SEC teams, as a rule, don't like to travel for OOC games. It doesn't matter the sport...

That got me thinking .. "i wonder how many times Big East teams have played away from home against BCS-OOC competition in the regular season?

FYI, since the advent of the "new big east" in 2005, here are the times when Big East teams have traveled to play OOC BCS competition:

WVU: Miss-State (2006), Colorado (2008), Auburn (2009), LSU (2010) ... 4 times

USF: Penn St (2005), Miami (05), Kansas (06), UNC (06), Auburn (07), NCST (08), FSU (09), Florida (09), Miami (09) ... 9 times

Pitt: ND (10), NCST (09), ND (08), Mich-ST (07), VA (07), NEB (05)
.... 6 times

Rutgers: ILL (05), UNC (06), MD (09) ... 3 times

Cincy: NCST (10), ORG-ST (09), OK (08), tOSU (06), VT (06), Penn ST (05) ... 6 times

UofL: KY (05), K-ST (06), KY (07), NC-ST (07), KY (09), Org-ST (10) ... 6 times

Syracuse: Wash (10), PSU (09), NWU (08), ND (08), Iowa (07), Wake (06), ILL (06), FSU (05), ND (05) ... 9 times

Uconn: GT (05), IND (06), Duke (07), VA (07), UNC (08), Baylor (09), ND (09), UM (10) ... 8 times

So USF, Syracuse, and Uconn have been real BCS road-warriors. Rutgers and WVU have rarely strayed from home to play BCS competition.

The Big East average is 6.375 times in 6 seasons, so just a shade more than 1 game per team per year.

Now let's look at 4 SEC powers:

LSU: UNC (10), Wash (09), ASU (05) ... 3 times

Florida: FSU (10), FSU (08), FSU (06) .... 3 times

Alabama: Duke (10), VT (09), CL (08) ... 3 times

Auburn: WVU (08) ... 1 time

Wow, so the SEC average is 2.5 times per 6 seasons, or less than 1/2 of a game per season, twice as few as Big East teams play on average ...

(02-21-2011 11:56 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-21-2011 06:29 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  SEC teams, as a rule, don't like to travel for OOC games. It doesn't matter the sport...

That got me thinking .. "i wonder how many times Big East teams have played away from home against BCS-OOC competition in the regular season?

FYI, since the advent of the "new big east" in 2005, here are the times when Big East teams have traveled to play OOC BCS competition:

WVU: Miss-State (2006), Colorado (2008), Auburn (2009), LSU (2010) ... 4 times

You missed the games @ Maryland (2005 & 2007)...

The last time I checked, the ACC was still a BCS conference...

(02-22-2011 09:45 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(02-21-2011 11:56 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-21-2011 06:29 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  SEC teams, as a rule, don't like to travel for OOC games. It doesn't matter the sport...

That got me thinking .. "i wonder how many times Big East teams have played away from home against BCS-OOC competition in the regular season?

FYI, since the advent of the "new big east" in 2005, here are the times when Big East teams have traveled to play OOC BCS competition:

WVU: Miss-State (2006), Colorado (2008), Auburn (2009), LSU (2010) ... 4 times

You missed the games @ Maryland (2005 & 2007)...

The last time I checked, the ACC was still a BCS conference...

I sure did. That probably means i missed games for other schools too. Sloppy work ...

It happens when you rush...

(02-22-2011 12:48 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  It happens when you rush...

yeah, i shouldn't be posting at 11 pm ... too tired.

Try going to bed next time, and wait til morning...