"Yankee" Schools in College Baseball

What would you say is the biggest reason northern schools who have fallen so far off in college baseball? Weather can't be an excuse since that's always been a disadvantage to northern climate schools.


Money, Title IX, not enough interest.

Weather is and always will be the biggest factor and that will never change unless they move the season closer to the summer and that will never happen because there is no incentive for the southern schools to do that.

Back in the days when MN, Ohio St., and Mich we're regular participants in the CWS, the regionals we're much more "regional" and the several northern regionals had all northern teams so you we're guaranteed to see some in the CWS. The sourthern schools complained that there regionals we're too loaded with all really strong southern programs and it wasn't fair. Once ESPN got ahold of the CWS and it became a bigger deal, they changed the rules and went to the format we have now where northern teams usually end up as a 4 seed and playing at the top overall seeds home. The simple fact is the southern coaches have all the power and have all the rules strongly tilted in there favor and thats not likely to change.
They briefly made the national starting date rule a couple years ago but that lasted like one season before they complained so much that it was reversed. the way the college baseball season works is northern teams have to make long road trips to the south and west every year to get games since southern teams rarely leave home, and usually this results in very lopsided records since this is usually the first times these no. teams have played actual games outside and the so. teams have been doing it for months. This results in very few at large qualifiers from the north since the records are usually not that good because of the early season schedules.
Just look at how many home games some of these southern teams play in a year, some of them never leave home during the non conference. I think there is a plenty of baseball talent in the north and I think some of those Minnesota National Championship teams proved that but this is the system we are stuck with. It would of been a shame had Dave Winfield not been able to showcase his talent to the country but under the current format it's most likely that gopher team may not have made it to the CWS.
My interest in the CWS has really dropped off due to it basically being a southern and west coast event plus with the old bats it was becoming a joke, so maybe I'll pay more attention now that they have fixed that issue but probably not much. when Nebraska had its run and even Notre Dame a few years ago I was definately paying more attention. I also really liked what Oregon State did, technically they are a northern team but on the west coast doesn't really count but they are not part of the good ole boys network of college baseball so I'm all for these outsiders taking it too the big boys.

Thank you. I didn't know the regions were set up differently in the past. I will say the changes have made the games seem a little more like baseball.

Johhny nailed it. Couple other observations that I have seen. First and foremost, the players in the South are just better baseball players at a younger age and most kid choose to go to college near where they grew up. When a northern kid, espically a position player, reaches his potential (I would say that it is generally by their junior or senior years in college) they are just catching up to the southern kids who are doing the same things as a freshman. I am not sure if that makes sense, but I remeber watching these true freshman from Cal State Fullerton, Arizona, etc that were just as good as all of our juniors and seniors and it comes from playing so much more ball when they were in high school. That allows those teams to have so much more depth. When a northern team loses a kid to injury, espically one of its starters, it hurts a lot more. The southern teams will just take a kid off the bench who would probably be starting for most northern teams. It's like hockey up here, there is no way that a minnesota kid and a california kid talent levels are any different, it just so happens that the MN kid has probably played an extra 2 or 3 seasons of hockey than a kid from Cali.

When you look at the draft, there are many northern pitchers drafted, but not as many position players, pitchers develop a lot faster than position players. I remeber playing Florida State and after the game on of their coaches came up to me and mentioned that he could not believe the arms that we had coming out of the bullpen. We had plenty of pitches and many of our pitchers could play at those southern schools, but position players would have stood no chance.

Like already mentioned, the players in the south are just that much better. Kids in the south play all year round. If you live in MN or most northern states, even if you don't play an other sport and concentrate solely on baseball, you can still only play for about 6 months. When I lived in North Carolina, there were kids that played 75+ games a year. When I was in little league, we were lucky to play 15 games.

Stacked Deck

A lot of good and valid points being made here. The deck is ridiculously stacked against teams from northern climates. The unfairness built into college baseball right now is quite frankly pathetic. The Big 10 regular season and tourney champ receiving a #4 seed at Fullerton back to back years is silly. I don't care what Illinois and Minnesota's overall records were. Ask CS-Fullerton if they appreciated them being shipped their way as a #4.

It is pretty difficult for a Big 10 team to have much success in the NCAA tournament when they are getting these kind of draws. Just for the heck of it pretend the Big 10 got the same treatment that the '1 National title' ACC gets (I don't count Miami (Fla)'s titles because they were an independent team; Just like I won't count Nebraska as the last Big 10 team to make the CWS). What if Michigan State, Illinois, Purdue, and Minnesota all hosted as #1 seeds and played Navy (#1 seed Virginia's 1st round opponent), Sacred Heart (#1 seed Clemson's), Bethune-Cookman (#1 Florida State's), and Maine (#1 North Carolina's) in their opening round? The Big 10 would do pretty darn good. What is going on right now in my opinion is basically a numbers game. The RPI is allowing the power conferences to receive huge advantages in seeding, hosting, and teams invited. Yeah, they are very good conferences but the top teams in the Big 10 are pretty darn good by the end of the year. I'm pretty confident that the Big 10 would have some Super Regional representatives if the conference received 7-8 bids, 4 host sites, and 4 #1 seeds. If they also hosted the SR round, some of them would break through and reach the CWS. Guaranteed.

Until the RPI system is abolished or changed in such a manner that significantly rewards road victories the status quo will remain. Personally, if the RPI problems are not addressed, I am all for a Northern and Northeastern regional whose winners meet in the SR round for a berth in the CWS. It isn't ideal as it would virtually eliminate more than one team from the cold climate regions of ever reaching Omaha during the same season, but AT LEAST ONE WOULD GET THERE EVERY YEAR!! Based on their RPI as of today, here is how the two regionals would have looked this year:

Northern:

#1 Creighton (RPI 34)
#4 Illinois (118)

#3 Sacred Heart (85)
#2 Kent State (39)

Average RPI 69-->I'm showing this just to show how I balanced out the regionals.

Northeastern:

#1 Connecticut (RPI 35)
#4 Manhattan (111)

#3 Seton Hall (56)
#2 St. John's (53)

Average RPI 64

I used the top 8 RPI northern/northeastern teams that were in this year's tournament to make up the field for these two regionals. I would be pretty confident that the team that came out of the Super Regional could compete with the rest of the CWS. Ask Clemson, CS Fullerton, Arizona, and Texas about some of these teams. Or ask Virginia who St. John's took to the brink at Charlottesville last year with virtually the same team that they fielded this year.

Hopefully something changes because what is going on isn't right. Maybe if Connecticut wins the whole thing changes will be made. They literally were on the bubble before the NCAA field was announced. One could argue that they have as much talent on their team as any team left in the tournament. The Huskies won the Big East regular season by 3.5 games going 22-5 in conference. Their regular season record was 41-17. When that team is on the bubble we've got a very unfortunate situation.

Good points. In high school and middle school down here, kids pretty much have to pick a sport and stick with it year round. I know a few that have been exclusively baseball since they were 10 years old.