Dropping late non-conference games could become a thing as college baseball coaches eye postseason
May 17—When the head and heart are in conflict, you have to make tough decisions.
In late February when college baseball begins, playing as many non-conference games as you can makes sense.
It lets pitchers get work, batters get their timing down and coaches establish roles for players.
When May comes around there's a lot of hay in the barn — yet not all the hay.
Lots of teams have different goals in reach, but in all of them RPI is the common denominator.
Ratings Percentage Index is the complicated formula that combines wins and losses, strength of schedule, opponent strength of schedule and other factors to assign each team a number.
That number — your RPI ranking — is very important in determining your postseason fate whether that's a top-eight seed to guarantee a super regional at home, a regional host for the NCAA's first round or simply making the tournament.
Last week Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle decided that number was too important for the Aggies — trying to strengthen their position as a regional host — to play Incarnate Word on Tuesday night.
So the game was cancelled.
In any sport the schedule is revered. For athletes and their families it's pondered and planned around.
In football that extends to most fans.
In basketball that extends to many fans.
All sports are different.
When SEC play starts basketball teams stop playing non-conference opponents but for odd exceptions.
A November football game against an FCS foe is still a chance to tailgate and get people on campus. To give up a home football game is to lose millions for the local economy.
If Texas A&M and Incarnate Word played baseball they'd barely make enough to pay the light bill.
When non-conference football games were cancelled as schedules were remade because of Covid-19 in 2020 there was an uproar over the loss of revenue for the smaller schools who depend on "buy-out games" to fund much of their budgets.
Instead, the Texas A&M-Incarnate Word decision was "mutual," according to an A&M news release.
While RPI was the driving factor, Scholossnagle said, both schools were also looking at their pitching depth and remaining conference games.
Things are different in the spring.
A former Mississippi State coach said once, twice or a thousand times, "That's baseball."
Locally, Ole Miss announced mid-Monday that it would not play a scheduled game at Arkansas State Tuesday night. The stated reason in an Ole Miss news release is "travel and scheduling circumstances."
Perhaps, but the RPI discussion is suddenly much more important for Ole Miss as it tries to play its way into the NCAA Tournament. The Rebels have regained a competitive RPI in the 30s. Arkansas State has five wins and an RPI of 229.
Nonchalantly dropping a game from the schedule seems slimy on the surface, but it could become the coaches' next response to the ever-present pressure to set up for a long postseason run.
The purists among us may say "Let's play two," but in reality the schedule shuffle makes a lot of sense.
PARRISH ALFORD is the college sports editor and columnist for the Daily Journal. Contact him at parrish.alford@journalinc.com.
