Are we just playing in division like basketball? How many conference games?

(01-04-2021 03:58 PM)GaSoEagle Wrote:  Are we just playing in division like basketball? How many conference games?

Almost every conference is allowing OOC games, can’t see why the SBC wouldn’t allow it.

There is a current proposal in front of the coaches right now

I hope we can have as close to a normal 56 game schedule as possible

Baseball should be the easiest sport to pull off, it’s outdoors and at most has what, 18 people spread out over about 3 acres. 18 being 9 fielders, bases loaded, batter, guy on deck and 4 umpires.

This isn’t an answer to the OP, but South is still working out the logistics for what we’ll do for our games. We’ll likely mirror basketball and football and have 25% capacity. We are consulting with medical professionals now and will have an answer the middle of this month. I’m assuming by then we know what we are doing for SBC.

If basketball does a Friday/Saturday type thing, I wonder if we’ll try to play one game on Friday and a DH on Saturday? I don’t know if we’ll be limited to division opponents or not though. I’d hate not to play a close team like Louisiana because we are in different divisions.

I was told by someone who would know that there is a proposal in front of the coaches, as Warhawk mentioned. Supposedly a decision is going to be made later this week.

Attendance will be left up to schools, Baseball is in a weird spot, much life softball because by the time we get down to the nit and gritty of league play, its going to be May and vaccines will be far more widespread. That means there's a unique possibility that teams will be able to allow more fans later in the season than they will early in the season.

Much like basketball, there are no OOC restrictions this year. Teams can play as few or as many as they like, and local games will be encouraged, but baseball OOC is unique in the sense that midweek games are almost always local. Its the weekend series where it gets tricky.

Tournament is in Montgomery as it was supposed to be last year. There are multiple options on the table in terms of format, most of which depend on how the league schedule works.

It looks like the SEC is leaning toward four game conference series with no midweek games after league play starts.

I had an interview with the Commissioner and asked if the SBC would follow that (since they pay close attention to what the SEC does.)

He said midweek games are important and he would not be in favor of doing it that way.

The way league play was SCHEDULED to work:

Conference games reduced to 24.
There are two bye weeks built into the conference schedule, enabling schools to schedule to benefit their RPI.
In league play, teams play everyone in their divison PLUS three series with the other division...opponents are dictated by a three year RPI average.
For instance, Louisiana, as a school that is top three RPI in the West, would play Coastal, Troy and South Alabama. They would not play the two Georgia schools and App.

We'll see if it stays that way.

(01-04-2021 10:36 PM)Usajags Wrote:  Baseball should be the easiest sport to pull off, it’s outdoors and at most has what, 18 people spread out over about 3 acres. 18 being 9 fielders, bases loaded, batter, guy on deck and 4 umpires.

Double that and you cover our spectators, too.

Double A and lower just postpone their start. I think we’re gonna see summer baseball.

(01-05-2021 07:50 PM)MOTIAW Wrote:  Double A and lower just postpone their start. I think we’re gonna see summer baseball.

No reason for that, MLB has already played a season and proven it can be done. Besides, if you can play football And basketball, absolutely no reason not to play baseball.

(01-05-2021 07:50 PM)MOTIAW Wrote:  Double A and lower just postpone their start. I think we’re gonna see summer baseball.

Won’t happen. We’re going to play through this just like other sports. Question is how the schedule looks

League is looking at the same. Four-game series, 10 weekends.

So possibly a 40 game season with no non-conference games?

(01-06-2021 10:51 PM)GaSoEagle Wrote:  So possibly a 40 game season with no non-conference games?

No, but restrict nonconference play to the period of 1 month in February and March prior to the start of league play...

Essentially the idea would eliminate midweek games, and teams would just play the 14 week season on weekends only.

Cajuns have a 29 game home slate listed for season ticket packages so I'm assuming they are looking at a typical 56 game schedule.

AD's to vote next week. Right now it looks like a normal 56 game schedule.

(01-07-2021 10:44 AM)BirdofParadise Wrote:  AD's to vote next week. Right now it looks like a normal 56 game schedule.

To offer some insight, I know we voted against the 40 game league schedule idea because we don't want to give up our annual games against Ole Miss and Missouri. There's also some concern among AD's about making significant schedule changes after we lost essentially the entirety of last season.

The concern right now is that there will be limited opportunity to play Power 5 schools this season, however we should still have access to most other G5 leagues, where a far larger portion of our OOC slate comes from.

There's also a push to test twice a week instead of 3 times a week to try and save costs

Vote comes next Tuesday. Recommendation is for a 56 game schedule with the modifications to conference play I published earlier.

The two tests is more about getting games to play about cost; lots of games in jeopardy because other teams don’t want to test three times.