Luke The Drifter said:

---

D1Baseball posted an SEC schedule analysis today. I don't have a subscription, but if one of you does, maybe you could post the Cliff's Notes version.

---

It is just a general overview and they say they will go into more details with each team's schedules later. I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say or how vague I should be, but they do have a non-conference schedule RPI rating based on those teams previous year's results. We are in the back half of the conference but not the bottom quarter (of course earlier in the text they mention we are still playing Michigan still so that might not be fully updated in the calculations). We play more home games than most SEC teams.

Overall, I don't think it says anything too surprising other than I was a bit surprised that Tenn plays the most non-conference home games of all SEC teams.

college baseball scheduling is a strange animal.

do coaches feel pressured to play in the neutral site round robin tournaments?

perhaps it is a way to mitigate RPI risk...or the money can't be turned down.

I would skip all of them and just go with 4 regular non-conference series

I always enjoyed tournaments, back in the days before streaming it gave fans a chance to see a number of teams over the course of a weekend, Kind of wish they bring back something to like the old Aggie Classic to Olsen. Probably not going to happen since there are so many now at MLB/Minor League parks

Bullpen Chias said:

---

We don't have the "exact same schedule" as the rest of the league.

---

OK, we have *nearly* the exact same conference schedule as the rest of the league. But it's our non-conference schedule that differentiates us from several of the other SEC teams.

Bullpen Chias said:

---

But you tried to portray our 2023 schedule as 13th/14th most difficult in SEC, and I'm saying it's a Top 5/6 schedule in the entire country.

---

Again…I was talking about NON-CONFERENCE schedule. It was even pointed out by D1Baseball that our non-conference slate was closer to the bottom of the SEC than to the top.

They need to go back to expand the length of the season, that way you can have more weekend series.

If Football with expanded playoff can play in December, the world won't hurt if baseball is played in early February

Luke The Drifter said:

---

Out of 26 possible non-conference games, we have a max of four (4) decent opponents...Louisville, Texas Tech, Texas, and Texas State. That leaves 22 absolute cupcake games on the docket.

---

Why do you consider U of H and Sam as certain cupcakes? They may be again this season but both programs have significantly stronger histories than TXSt. and have not shown as of yet to have cratered like Rice.

jkag89 said:

---

Luke The Drifter said:

---

Out of 26 possible non-conference games, we have a max of four (4) decent opponents...Louisville, Texas Tech, Texas, and Texas State. That leaves 22 absolute cupcake games on the docket.

---

Why do you consider U of H and Sam as certain cupcakes? They may be again this season but both programs have significantly stronger histories than TXSt. and have not shown as of yet to have cratered like Rice.

---

Good point. Neither has slipped to be Rice-bad, but neither has really been much of a regional contender lately, either. And I'm not concerned about UIW, PVAMU, Lamar, etc. Everyone has to play folks like that on Tuesdays. But when your non-conference weekends are Seattle, Portland, and Northern Kentucky...with Rice on the schedule 3 times...everything gets put under the microscope when it comes to tourney selection time.

If we don't beat Louisville, Texas Tech, and/or Texas, there is a very good chance we will likely have zero quality non-conference wins.

Since I live near Abilene, I would love to see a mid-week game against Tech played at Abilene Christian. They have a nice stadium that seats 4,000. There are a lot of Ags within easy driving distance to Abilene.

A team does not need to be a regular or even a semi-regular Regional team to be a solid opponent and not be a RPI drag. U of H, Sam, UTSA, Lamar, even a single game against Rice (sad to see how far this program has fallen, hopefully they can bounce back to at least respectability soon) are perfectly fine as regulars on the midweek schedule. My complaint with midweek games is far too many games against the likes of UIW, Tarleton St., HCU, PVAM, etc. have crept onto the schedule. A couple of games a season against such teams, fine, more than that is just a big yawn even for us die hard fans.

Some of those yawner games get risky when trying to build an RPI. Our worst loss last year was to a former power program Wichita St., who ended up at # 145. However, we won our final two games on opening weekend against number #267 Fordham by a combined 3 runs. Beat # 180 HCU/HBU 3-2.

Win the west like we did last year and RPI doesn't come in to play too much. If you are not a regular season champ or division champ, and on the bubble for host for a regional or super regional spot, then it all becomes relevant.

I would be real curious how Schloss feels about the schedule. He was obviously very concerned about our RPI late in the season last year.