Aug. 30, 2007

By Douglas Kroll

CSTV.com

	DOUG KROLL Doug Kroll is an editor for CSTV.com, focusing on baseball. E-mail here!

        ---   Column Archive   --- BASEBALL 1/17: So Cool In SoCal 1/10: Starting With Not Such A Clean Slate 1/3: Closing the Gap 12/27: For Starters 12/20: Second Is Just Fine 12/13: Not Short On Talent 12/06: Stars In The Outfield 11/29: Staying Hot On The Hot Corner 11/23: First Thing Is First 11/16: Best Backstops 11/08: Engineering Perfection 11/01: Up The Coast 10/25: Sun Devils Best In Fall 10/18: Taking The Plunge 10/11: Tourney Time 10/4: Red Raider Savior 9/27: Not Fooling Around 9/20: Continuing To Right The Ship 9/13: Flying Back With The Ducks? 9/6: Same Faces, New Places 8/30: More And More Like MLB 8/23: Laying Down A Full House 8/16: No Hitch At Deadline 8/9: College Homerun Kings 8/2: Bringing The Tradition Back 7/23: Cape Cod Update - All-Star Edition 7/19: Bringing The Quack Back 7/17: Summer League Update - Week 5 7/6: A Ride On A Carousel 7/2: Summer League Update - Week 3 6/28: Omaha In Review 6/26: Summer League Update - Week 2 6/25: Second Time As Good As First 6/21: Back In The Saddle 6/20: Series On The Line 6/19: Expect the Unexpected 6/19: Planting Seeds...Again 6/18: Cape Cod Summer League Update 6/18: Cards On Their Heels 6/17: Pac-10 Showdown 6/17: Is It April Or June? 6/16: Seeds of Success 6/16: Sunday, Bloody Sunday 6/15: Final Chapter For Price 6/13: Omaha in the Cards 6/7: Big Blue Oaks 6/7: The Right Price 5/31: Go Johnnies Go 5/17: Not So Mid Anymore 5/10: In And Out 5/6: On the Road With ECU: Day Three 5/5: On the Road With ECU: Day Two 5/3: On the Road With ECU: Day One 5/3: Staying True to the Family 4/26: Having Fun With Two 4/19: Pitching Is Name Of The Game 4/12: Going Coastal 4/5: Right On Key 4/3: April Schedule Planner 3/29: Northern Exposure 3/22: East Carolina Set To Make Waves 3/8: Shedding The Blues 3/1: March Baseball Schedule Planner 2/25: Seawolves Swept in Carolina 2/24: A Loss Is, Well, A Loss 2/23: On the Road With The Brook 2/15: Florida Looks To Chomp Out Of Rut 2/9: Winthrop Winning The Tough Way 1/29: February Baseball Schedule Planner 1/28: Same Game, New Team, No Year Off 1/21: The Real All-Americans 1/19: Just One Of Those Weeks FOOTBALL 8/24: When Is A Win, A Win? 8/21: Topping Harlon's Hill Twice 8/2: Mid-American Conference Preview 8/2: Thunder and Lightning in Kalamazoo 8/2: Showing Flashes 12/16: Sweet Home Alabama 12/15: Humble Woodhead Wins Harlon Hill 12/14: Familiar Foes, Only On The Biggest Stage 12/7: Blooming in Bloomsberg 11/30: Grand Valley To Face One And Only Rival 11/15: Something New, For Newberry 11/1: Chadron's On The Map 10/28: What Can Brown Do For U-Conn 10/23: Asserting Identity 10/11: Leaf Fits Right in at West Texas 10/4: Pioneers Post Impressive Feats 9/27: Bible Belt Clash 9/20: Regaining Respect at Ashland 9/13: It's the GLFC, Not the GLIAC 9/7: Four Horse Race At Valdosta State BASKETBALL 10/23: Jayhawks, Longhorns Top Big 12 10/19: Memphis The Class Of C-USA 1/8: In The Zone, Hofstra Goes To It 12/28: Sweet Stroke For Stokes 12/05: Hofstra Wins Battle Of Long Island 11/30: Despite Loss, Great Day For Sea Wolves 10/17: CSTV's Top Five Games 10/16: Shiny Pearl in Knoxville 10/13: FSU's Thornton Still Blossoming W. VOLLEYBALL 8/23: Cardinal Comeback 8/21: Pavan Paves Her Way 8/21: Rock Stars In Diguise 8/20: Nebraska's Staying On Top M. WATER POLO 9/5: West Is The Best 9/3: 2007 Men's Water Polo Preview

Games played on a Tuesday or Thursday in college baseball has not been totally out of the question in the past. But starting this season, it will become the norm for many.

Thanks to the national start date being pushed back to Feb. 22, some coaching staffs are scrambling to add midweek games to ensure their teams get to that desirable number of 53 games. Taking away three weeks from when they used to play games will tend to do that.

There are plenty of tactics that were used to create the 2008 schedules and plenty of results as well that will be discussed at a later time. But for now, let's take a look at a few of the schedules that have appeared, as we're less than six months away now from the first pitch of the 2008 season.

Florida:

First-year head coach Kevin O'Sullivan probably had little to nothing to do with this year's slate considering he was hired in May of this year. The non-conference highlights are nothing new to the usual Gators schedule. A three-game series with Miami and home-and-home midweek games against Florida State. Remember, O'Sullivan comes from Clemson where he got to know both teams pretty well, putting together a 10-4 record against Miami since the 2000 season, which included a stretch of seven straight wins in 2005 and 2006. O'Sullivan had a big role in taking seven of the last eight meetings that the Tigers had against Florida State the last two years.

Don't expect another opening weekend like last season's debacle against VMI when the Gators lost two-of-three. This year they will open against Siena at home followed by a two game midweek series against Eastern Michigan before heading down to Coral Gables. 

As for the SEC portion, O'Sullivan will get his first taste against Auburn at home, and how about his first conference road trip scheduled for Ole Miss? Welcome to the SEC, coach.

Auburn:

While nearly every school with a schedule out seems to have attacked the start date with two-game midweek series, the Tigers went in a slightly different direction. Auburn will have three different four-game series as part of its non-conference schedule, including a split series against Florida State, where the first two games will be played in Auburn and the following two coming in Tallahassee.

East Tennessee State is the first to come calling for the Tigers, as the two will play a series that extends from Friday, Feb. 22 to Monday, Feb. 25. Then a rare two days off will get the Tigers prepared for the Seminoles, who come to town Thursday and Friday before the teams head south Saturday and Sunday.

It is that series with FSU that begins a 12-day stretch with 10 games to play, including six straight at home against Davidson (two) and VMI (four). The Keydets, however, are not the team that the Tigers want to see for a four-game set, considering Auburn has lost three of its last four against them. 

And in conference, the Tigers have to go to rival Alabama, Vanderbilt and Ole Miss. Yikes.

So the bottom line is, Tiger fans will get a lot of baseball. Let's just hope for the fans' and scoreboard operator's sake, the pitching staff is deep.

Cal State Fullerton:

Enough with the SEC for now, so let's head west to Fullerton, where the Titans have an interesting opening series and a load of excellent non-conference action that to keep us busy.

The Titans will open at TCU, as they swap one Texas team out who they played the last two years, Rice, for another. The two teams last met in 1994, in a series that began 20 years ago, with Fullerton having won all four games. But this is a different Horned Frogs team, and it should be a beauty of a three-game set.

After a midweek game against Loyola Marymount, the Titans head back out on the road, this time to Stanford as they play their annual series against each other. The Titans took all three at home last season but were swept the last time they went to Palo Alto in 2006.   

Other non-conference opponents include three midweek games against UCLA, a three-game series at home against another C-USA opponent, Southern Miss, three games against San Diego, a weekend series at Arizona and a May weekend against San Diego State. 

Head coach George Horton deserves a tip of the cap for this schedule. Going out of the way to put together a solid day-in, day-out schedule isn't always wise, but it should pay off for Fullerton in the long run, like it always seems to do.

UCLA:

The Bruins will be everyone's trendy pick to not only make it to Omaha, but to possibly win it all in 2008. While that may be a stretch, the Bruins will get an early test at Jackie Robinson Stadium when Oklahoma comes calling. UCLA has had success against them, including two wins in 2000 in the Oklahoma City Regional against the Sooners and two more again in the 2004 Oklahoma City Regional.   

Not that it has a whole lot to do with the 2008 season, but I'm sure Oklahoma fans are looking forward to a little payback.

Besides that, only midweek games against fellow SoCal teams headline their schedule. Circle April 8 and May 13 on your calendars, as UC Irvine will play home-and-home against the Bruins, and the weekend of April 11, when UC Riverside comes to town.

UCLA's non-conference record should be very good, too, with weekend series against Saint Mary's (CA) and Cal Poly included, and when it comes to its Pac-10 schedule, the only tough road series looks to be the first conference road trip against Arizona, and Oregon State in early May. Meanwhile, the Bruins get USC and Arizona State at home.

N.C. State:

Last but certainly not least, the only ACC schedule out is the Wolfpack's.  But there's nothing special in the non-conference portion, as N.C. State will open with an improving Appalachian State team on Feb. 22 for a three-game series and then head to The Citadel Tournament the weekend after.

The conference portion of the schedule will obviously be critical, especially the first two series. Part of a 12-game home stand at Doak Field at Dail Park in March, the Wolfpack will face Virginia and Miami in back-to-back weekends to get conference play underway. 

And then it doesn't get any easier. The Wolfpack head on the road to Clemson and North Carolina the next two weekends to close out the month of March. If N.C. State is near the bottom of the conference standings, don't get too upset, there's a silver lining.

The next five series are: vs. Wake Forest, vs. Duke, at Virginia Tech, vs. Boston College and at Maryland. They wrap things up at Florida State, which if they are able to make some headway against those five teams, could be a very large series at the end of the year.