Ohio State/ Big Ten baseball

Captain Obvious said:
Good luck getting a top tier SEC/ACC coach. Tune into any weekend game in those conferences and the places are rocking. The fan excitement is unrivaled. Big Ten fans could be confused for a US Open tennis or golf crowd. From the looks of it Mosiello tried to work with promotions to get the students to the games. Having a lack of fan and student interest coupled with a stadium situated around turf fields, parking lots and concrete isn’t the recipe to competing for elite recruits.
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If you start winning and put a product on the field the fans can believe in then they will come.

Hiring Mosiello was a massive mistake as he wasn’t the university’s first choice but in typical Gene Smith fashion he couldn’t get the Vanderbilt coach. Hopefully Bjork doesn’t botch this hire like he did the basketball team.
 
Why would anyone from a warm weather school want to come coach baseball in March and April in Ohio? This guy leaving to go back to an assistant job at TCU tells you everything you need to know about Ohio State and Big Ten baseball.

Go hire someone that has actually built a winning mid-major program at a northern school with primarily northern players. Unless they unload big money bags on baseball bringing in an SEC/ACC guy isn’t going to result in bringing in southern talent or retaining the best in-state talent. Nobody wants to play up here in the spring when it’s still fairly cold if they can go play at a warm weather school.
 
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On Facebook somebody has been telling me the Bowling Green coach would be a good one. Supposedly he’s pretty new there and has been keeping some top players in state which is pretty amazing for a MAC team.
 
Captain Obvious said:
Good luck getting a top tier SEC/ACC coach. Tune into any weekend game in those conferences and the places are rocking. The fan excitement is unrivaled. Big Ten fans could be confused for a US Open tennis or golf crowd. From the looks of it Mosiello tried to work with promotions to get the students to the games. Having a lack of fan and student interest coupled with a stadium situated around turf fields, parking lots and concrete isn’t the recipe to competing for elite recruits.
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You’re forgetting the most important factor. Playing in 30 degree temps
 
All this talk about northern teams struggling but the weather between Lexington and Columbus is pretty identical year around.
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Captain Obvious said:
Good luck getting a top tier SEC/ACC coach. Tune into any weekend game in those conferences and the places are rocking. The fan excitement is unrivaled. Big Ten fans could be confused for a US Open tennis or golf crowd. From the looks of it Mosiello tried to work with promotions to get the students to the games. Having a lack of fan and student interest coupled with a stadium situated around turf fields, parking lots and concrete isn’t the recipe to competing for elite recruits.
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It's the weather in B1G country. Not enough good weather to want to sit through a college baseball game. Heck, I went to Arizona State while it was a baseball power and the Pac 12 was as good as it gets and there was marginal fan interest. College baseball only moves the needle in places where there is no competition from MLB.
 
cjb5656 said:
If you're UK you're playing most of your league games in deeper southern states with warmer weather. OSU doesn't have that luxury, though at least bringing in the four western schools will help a little.
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Ohio State if I believe correctly doesn’t play a home game until a month into their season. They play a lot of games in the warmer states. After that the weather in Columbus is perfectly fine. Now….Cleveland would be another thing
 
Spartacus1987 said:
Ohio State if I believe correctly doesn’t play a home game until a month into their season. They play a lot of games in the warmer states. After that the weather in Columbus is perfectly fine. Now….Cleveland would be another thing
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I agree the program can be much better, as it definitely was under Todd, but it's not really realistic to ever see the B1G at SEC level. When Nebraska, with much harsher weather, was in the Big 8/12 they had a nationally ranked program, as have Michigan and Minnesota in the past in the B1G. Kent State had a very good program for decades, as has Ohio State...so I do agree it can be much better than it is now. It just will be difficult for the B1G as a whole to ever be a really good baseball league.
 
I agree on the weather angle to an extent. According to box scores, most of their home games were played in weather 50* or better. They spent February and most of March playing in warmer climates. In my opinion, the bigger problem is OSU and their opponents have been largely irrelevant by the time the weather breaks. OSU hosted a middle of the pack Michigan State on a late April Friday and drew <1,000 with temps in the seventies (Source: OSU box score). They played Wright State in front of ~3,000 fans midweek after targeting students with a promotion. Getting more students to the games should be a major priority. As it stands, the games have become a babysitting device for many parents. Come to the games with your friends and their kids and let them roam open areas at the top of an empty stadium.
For the sake of comparison, last place Auburn played host to Ole Miss in front of a crowd of ~4,500 late season. For various reasons, B10 baseball doesn’t move the meter for most fans in the region. In many years, it could be argued mid-major conferences surpass it. I’m hoping playing USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington will help in that regard because a late season home stand with Northwestern does nothing for most fans.
 
Of course the Big Ten isn’t going to generate fan attendance when it’s clear the conference doesn’t care about baseball. However, if you put a product on the field that people believe in then they would have no problem spending their money to attend.

I am one of those people, I definitely follow the program but I’ll be damned to spend my money on such a trash product. Just would be a bad investment on my end and something like this doesn’t deserve my money. Put something out there I can get behind and I absolutely would attend/spend money.
 
Captain Obvious said:
For the sake of comparison, last place Auburn played host to Ole Miss in front of a crowd of ~4,500 late season. For various reasons, B10 baseball doesn’t move the meter for most fans in the region. In many years, it could be argued mid-major conferences surpass it. I’m hoping playing USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington will help in that regard because a late season home stand with Northwestern does nothing for most fans.
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Minor league baseball has a lot to do with it IMO. Across much of the SEC core footprint in the Deep South there are few minor league teams, almost all A and AA. MLB you only have the Braves outside of the state of Florida. There are few and sometimes no real competitors with college baseball in southern college towns.

At Ohio State your baseball team is in direct competition for attendance with a Columbus AAA team that’s regularly near the top of minor league baseball in attendance. With some exceptions, much of the Big Ten footprint is in direct competition for attendance with MLB, AAA and AA teams.
 
Captain Obvious said:
Good luck getting a top tier SEC/ACC coach. Tune into any weekend game in those conferences and the places are rocking. The fan excitement is unrivaled. Big Ten fans could be confused for a US Open tennis or golf crowd. From the looks of it Mosiello tried to work with promotions to get the students to the games. Having a lack of fan and student interest coupled with a stadium situated around turf fields, parking lots and concrete isn’t the recipe to competing for elite recruits.
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this point is true, but at the same time you can’t force something that isn’t organic.

Some of the more well-known gameday atmosphere traditions in the south would be not accepted here in the north. Things like throwing beer on another (Ole Miss), whistling (Vanderbilt) and blowing bubbles onto the field during live action (aTm) I can already see as getting kiboshed up here.

I also think one difference in atmosphere revolves around your non-student base in attendance. The SEC schools’ “elite” networking opportunities exist in the Greek life and programs like baseball. WASP influence, alumni/donors in the oil industry, high-wealth suburbanites, these are all congealing together for a dedicated following with a “just win, baby” attitude while winter passes up here. And this is a wide geographic landscape that has, like, one MLB franchise firmly in its backyard (the Braves.) I could see an effort congealing better around UC baseball than Ohio State, for instance, if not for the Reds.
 
Spartacus1987 said:
Not quite sure what to think of this one, it’s been growing on me since he had some success against top ACC teams.

www.elevenwarriors.com

Ohio State Hires Campbell’s Justin Haire As New Baseball Coach

Ohio State hires Justin Haire, who won 317 games and five Big South championships over the past 10 years at Campbell, as its new baseball coach.
www.elevenwarriors.com www.elevenwarriors.com
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Those mids in the south play a lot of ball versus ACC and SEC teams, as well as good northern teams on their early season southern swing. Looks like a promising hire.
 
cjb5656 said:
Those mids in the south play a lot of ball versus ACC and SEC teams, as well as good northern teams on their early season southern swing. Looks like a promising hire.
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I hope so. I’m not asking for consistent CWS appearances from OSU but I am asking for some consistent super regional appearances and a CWS appearance every so often. Those should be the expectations for OSU baseball.
 
Spartacus1987 said:
I hope so. I’m not asking for consistent CWS appearances from OSU but I am asking for some consistent super regional appearances and a CWS appearance every so often. Those should be the expectations for OSU baseball.
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I am not saying its impossible, but rather very hard to do. The best players rather be warm outside playing ball. The midwest has always been a tough sell. Every now and then you get Kent, Indiana or Michigan to the CWS, but its not a regular thing. College Baseball runs the south.
 
playboi12 said:
I am not saying its impossible, but rather very hard to do. The best players rather be warm outside playing ball. The midwest has always been a tough sell. Every now and then you get Kent, Indiana or Michigan to the CWS, but its not a regular thing. College Baseball runs the south.
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South and the West. ACC has only won 2 CWS championships - Virginia in 2015 and Wake Forest in 1955. NCs are not easy to win in any sport period, in baseball SEC, PAC 12, Big 12 (mostly the southern schools) have dominated college baseball because good players up north in HS go down south to play baseball. At my own small hick HS one of our better players, moved to Fla. to concentrate on baseball. Fact is very few people up north care about college baseball just like Southerners don't care for college hockey or wrestling.
 
Stirred not Shaken said:
South and the West. ACC has only won 2 CWS championships - Virginia in 2015 and Wake Forest in 1955. NCs are not easy to win in any sport period, in baseball SEC, PAC 12, Big 12 (mostly the southern schools) have dominated college baseball because good players up north in HS go down south to play baseball. At my own small hick HS one of our better players, moved to Fla. to concentrate on baseball. Fact is very few people up north care about college baseball just like Southerners don't care for college hockey or wrestling.
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I cant believe some schools are trying to make hockey work down there. Tough ask, but I don't see it happening. As for baseball, some B1G schools should shift toward the entertainment value getting butts in the seats.
 
bob99 said:
When I was growing up in northern Ohio, you couldn't find a vacant baseball field during the summer. We had neighborhood pickup baseball games just about everyday. I can't remember the last time I have seen a pickup baseball game. There is organized baseball and in my town, little league is done by the 4th of July. Kids are on their computers and have no interest in going outside to play. Different priorities.
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Ridiculous response. What's killed little league is the proliferation of travel leagues. Kids aren't sitting on their computers, they're just being forced out of competitive sports sooner and sooner in today's world. Football is really the last community sport left, everything else is dominated by travel teams
 
smurfyeah19 said:
Ridiculous response. What's killed little league is the proliferation of travel leagues. Kids aren't sitting on their computers, they're just being forced out of competitive sports sooner and sooner in today's world. Football is really the last community sport left, everything else is dominated by travel teams
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What did I say? When I was a kid we would play baseball all summer long. We were outside everyday. Kids don't "play" anymore. We had our neighborhood "gangs." That is a thing of the past. Yes the majority are sitting on their computers.
That is their competitive sport these days.
 
bob99 said:
What did I say? When I was a kid we would play baseball all summer long. We were outside everyday. Kids don't "play" anymore. We had our neighborhood "gangs." That is a thing of the past. Yes the majority are sitting on their computers.
That is their competitive sport these days.
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Do you have kids that are under the age of 18?
 
Spartacus1987 said:
Don’t understand why we don’t have a college baseball forum but I thought I would put this here. Ohio State baseball used to be actually a solid program but has become such a late term abortion type bad that I haven’t watched a full game of theirs since I think 2019 (they don’t deserve my time or money). My grandpa has got to be watching from heaven in total disgust (former OSU baseball captain from the 60s).

From the little bit I do follow and what I understand their head coach now wasn’t even their first choice and they wanted to get the Vanderbilt pitching coach but that coach wanted to completely revolutionize things and OSU wasn’t going to do that. (Thanks Gene Smith for continuing to destroy OSU athletics)

Here we are now and I see that a few weeks ago OSU made the Big Ten baseball tournament for the first time in a few years and people were actually applauding this. Making a conference tournament for a conference that’s had one CWS participant I believe in the last 30ish years? That is just disgusting and despicable.

Here I am today watching Nebraska who won the Big Ten tournament play a middle of the pack SEC team in Florida and LOSE. How can anyone support this? How can anyone watch this and ever get excited? Granted I make sure to watch the College baseball tournament every year and cheer on every Big Ten team in the tournament in the hopes SOMEBODY can have a Michigan type run from 2019 but it appears highly unlikely.

I definitely rip on the Big Ten for having atrocious Football and Basketball but Big Ten baseball should honestly be discontinued with their complete lack of competitiveness on the national scale. It’s so bad that they don’t deserve to exist.

For Ohio State it really would be simple enough to hire the right guy to coach the team and keep the best players in Ohio. If Kentucky and Louisville can have respectable baseball programs then so can OSU.
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Probably because my DII team could win the BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIP. Course, one of our mid strength brethren beat the defending National Champion Carolina Gamecocks TOO!
 
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