And The Valley Shook

WEEKEND GAMETHREAD: @ #1 South Carolina

2012-05-17T15:01:02Z

One of the oddities of SEC baseball is that it plays a 10 weekend league schedule with 12 teams, meaning you miss one team a year. By odd coincidence, this has led to LSU and South Carolina missing each other for the last 2 years as the Gamecocks have made their mark as a dominant program in college baseball and the class of the SEC. That all gets settled this weekend as the winners of the last 3 National Championships square off with a shot at the SEC regular season championship, the #1 overall seed in next week's tournament, and a potential national Top 8 seed all up for grabs to the winner. I talked with Gamecock Man of the excellent Garnet and Black Attack to get his thoughts on his team and the weekend ahead.

PodKATT: Thanks to the scheduling quirks of the SEC, It's been a while since LSU has played South Carolina and the program has taken off for the stratosphere after 2 straight national titles. What's the culture of the fan base like these days and how prominent would you say the team is in the minds of the average South Carolina fan?

Gamecock Man: Football is king at South Carolina, but we're one of the few schools where baseball probably comes in second (although prolonged futility by the basketball team has a lot to do with that). South Carolina fans love their baseball. That's been true for a while now, and it's become even more true over the past two years, as, after many years of being competitive but not great, we can now lay claim to being an elite program. South Carolina hasn't had much to crow about over the course of its history, so we take a lot of pride in having a great baseball program. That will show this weekend, when you can expect to see a big crowd on hand for what has ended up being one of the premier SEC series of the year.

PK: Michael Roth was one of the big national names this preseason and has had a great season. Matt Price also got a lot of talk after his masterful work in Omaha, but he had a rough time adjusting to the full time starting role and by the start of SEC play was back in the bullpen. The pitching staff looks great overall, with a strong 3.18 team ERA. Who are some names that LSU fans haven't heard of that are making an impact on this team?

GM: USC comes into this game with an unclear pitching situation. This is probably the biggest issue in the series from our point of view. Roth is the Friday starter, but the other two days are up for grabs. Jordan Montgomery looked good for a few weeks on Saturdays, but he's struggling now, and we may look to other options. Colby Holmes was doing well on Sundays, but he suffered a freak injury a few weeks ago and missed some time. He was back on the mound yesterday afternoon against USC-Upstate. The plan was to throw him for an inning and see how he responded, in hopes that he's be ready for a bigger role this weekend. That didn't work out too well, as he got roughed up before leaving the game after only getting two outs. It's not clear what role he'll be ready to play. With the current situation, Forrest Koumas will almost certainly start one game, but whether we pair him and Montgomery or him and Holmes is unclear. Some other guys to watch are Nolan Belcher and Evan Beal. Both have pitched well in middle relief roles, and there's a small chance we'd look to them to start a game this weekend, although I'd have to imagine that Tanner won't do that if he can avoid it. Along with Tyler Webb, we need them as our core group in middle relief.

UPDATE: It's now being reported that Roth will start Thursday, Koumas Friday, with Saturday still up for grabs. Judging from the sound of things, I expect Montgomery to take a reduced role this weekend, with either Holmes or someone else getting the Saturday start.

PK: The South Carolina offense has a couple of impact freshman in Grayson Greiner and All-Name 1st teamer Joey Pankake, and a big bat in Christian Walker, but the days of a true power hitter like Jackie Bradley Jr. seem long gone for the entire sport. How has South Carolina adjusted to the dead bat era and how does it get it's work done scoring runs?

GM: South Carolina isn't a dominant hitting team, but it gets its fair share of batters on base, and it's done a good job of making the most of its opportunities. Ray Tanner is known for liking to play small ball (to the point that Carolina fans often cringe at memories of sluggers bunting), and while we've done a bit less of that than usual this year (maybe a bit less base-running speed than in the past), you'll still see a bit of that. In addition to the guys you've named, Tanner English and Chase Vergason are two to keep an eye on. Both, particularly English, have been hitting the ball really well lately. Evan Marzilli has been a pretty steady player this year, probably the steadiest other than Walker.

PK: The SEC regular season title is on the line, how do you see the weekend playing out?

GM: I'll be honest, I'm worried about our pitching situation. I think our hitting is doing well enough now for us to put some runs on the board against LSU, and if we can also get some good performances from whoever we throw on Saturday or Sunday, we obviously have a great chance, but pitching is about as uncertain for us right now at it's been all year. I'm going to be a homer and say that we pull out the fairy dust and win the series 2-1, but I'm not confident in that projection.

Stadium Graphic via Cameron Roberson

******

Thanks to a late audible from Cox Sports, all 3 games will be televised in Louisiana. Weather-wise, There is a strong chance of thunderstorms that lasts through 1st pitch tonight, but the rest of the weekend should not be a problem

PITCHING MATCHUPS from LSUSports.net
Game 1 - 6pm - FSN (Fox Sports South/Fox Sports Houston/Fox Sports Southwest)
LSU - So. RHP Kevin Gausman (8-1, 2.95 ERA, 91.2, 21 BB, 112 SO)
USC - Sr. LHP Michael Roth (5-0, 2.60 ERA, 86.2 IP, 27 BB, 66 SO)

Game 2 - 6pm - Cox Sports
LSU - Fr. RHP Aaron Nola (6-3, 3.86 ERA, 67.2 IP, 6 BB, 63 SO)
USC - So. RHP Forrest Koumas (2-2, 5.40 ERA, 20.0 IP, 13 BB, 23 SO)

Game 3 - Noon - ESPNU
LSU - So. RHP Ryan Eades (5-2, 3.75 ERA, 74.1 IP, 21 BB, 49 SO)
USC - TBA

Relegation Sucks

2012-05-16T16:51:36Z

Relegation is all the rage this week on SB Nation, as writers try to enthusiastically sell you on the concept of screwing over the worst team in your conference. All of this enthusiasm for the idea tells me that either they are not soccer fans or, if they are, they are the sort of soulless bastard who pulls for Manchester United.

I lived in England for three years, so I supported the local side, Leeds United. If you're not familiar with the history of Leeds, well, it used to be good and now it sort of sucks.

Leeds made the UEFA Champions League semifinals in 2001 and ten years later found themselves bankrupt and in the third division. Yeah, it sounds cool unless it's your team. Leeds wasn't some obscure team, they won titles throughout the 1970s and were a power as late as the 1990s. This would be like Penn St. going through a downward spiral.

A cursory look at the Premiership, or any major European soccer league, shows the effect of relegation - a handful of teams win the title every year while a small middle class barely hangs on but rarely competes for anything. And about half of the league is essentially a permanent underclass trying to avoid relegation. Sounds like fun, huh?

Success is defined by simply not getting kicked out of the league. And the big boys, like Alabama or Ohio St, would win the title every single year as it becomes increasingly difficult to slowly build a team.

Boise St. built their program by consistently dominating a lower conference. Then they got an opportunity to play a big boy well into their run of dominance, which attracted even more recruits to the place and allowed them to sustain success. Under a promotion model, Boise gets kicked up to the Pac-10 three or four years earlier, and they get absolutely dominated by the established teams. They have to be ready right away instead of slowly building their team and playing the big boys when they are finally ready. Under promotion and relegation, Boise likely never becomes this middle class power. It never gets off the ground, and they follow up their first conference title by going 2-7 in the Pac-10 and getting relegated again.

We all know that the SEC is a cash cow, particularly compared to life in the Sun Belt. We also know that football drives the bus. Can you imagine the devastation on a program if you turned the money pipe off?

Let's take Mississippi State, fresh off a disappointing football season, as our test case. Football has a bad year, so then every program in every sport gets relegated, which seems pretty unfair to the basketball team. But football pays the bills, and now instead of taking home $20 million or so every year, they are taking home $2 or 3 million. What's an AD to do? Well, either double down in football to get back to the pay day of the SEC or accept the new reality in the Sun Belt. Regardless, he's got to trim over $15 million from his budget.

Say goodbye to every other sport MSU plays. If nothing else, there would be some severe belt tightening for the women's softball team. If MSU constantly yo-yo's up and down, the cuts become permanent as they can't count on football to pay for all of the other programs. The non-revenue sports go to austere measures or get cut entirely. Even if MSU gets promoted the next season, the cuts are likely permanent.

Relegation would be Armageddon for non-revenue sports. For those of us who like track and baseball, this would be a catastrophe. But it would be foolish for an AD to invest in these programs when they could not count on football revenues. The AD that kept investing in these programs would see the program in bankruptcy, not unlike Leeds United, which didn't have a dozen other sports to support.

The end result of relegation is Alabama more powerful than ever, less competition from the bottom teams in the conference (sure they'd play hard, but they'd also have inconsistent recruiting and much smaller budgets), and maybe the end of the non-revenue sports. And we likely still wouldn't have a playoff.

Why don't we just let Alabama claim the next 10 national championships, like they will anyway, cancel the Mississippi State series, and save ourselves the money?

Quantavious Leslie Commits!

2012-05-16T16:12:19Z

Quantavious Leslie Commits!

After a a month and a half of radio silence on the recruiting front, LSU landed big-time JUCO WR Quantavious Leslie today.

Leslie is precisely the type of big-bodied WR LSU was in the hunt for and he should be in line for playing time next season. Here's some highlights. Big kid that can really run. He signed with West Virginia out of high school but failed to qualify. Big addition to the class.

In a night that turned out to be a disaster for SEC baseball, LSU should have cruised to a blow out...

2012-05-16T13:07:35Z

In a night that turned out to be a disaster for SEC baseball, LSU should have cruised to a blow out win over Nicholls St., but some 9th inning drama brought the Colonels all the way back from a 7 run deficit to have the tying run at the plate with 2 outs. LSU would hold on for the 9-6 victory, and is just glad to be undefeated in mid week games for the year, a feat that is unmatched in LSU history. I could say that I'm worried about Nick Goody having a 2nd bad outing in a row, but with the large amount of late game subs, I'm just going to blame this one on the defense and move on. Kurt McCune gets the win for his 5IP 6H 2R performance, but he did seem to struggle early until some run support allowed him to relax. Kevin Berry and Joe Broussard had great brief relief outings.

At the plate, Raph Rhymes is slowly getting out of his funk (1-3 with a walk and a RBI, BA now at .476) but Austin Nola is really on a tear lately since being put in the leadoff spot, with a perfect 4 for 4 outing last night. We also had some nice fireworks from Mason Katz who blasted a 3 run homer, his 10th of the year. It shows you just how much the game has changed in just two years that Katz may be the only LSU player with double digit home runs this year.

LSU also officially passed the 400,000 mark in attendance for the season last night, but as there appears to be some discrepancy in the figures, I'm going to wait and do a full breakdown later.

GAMETHЯEAD: LSU vs. COMMUNISM, 6:30pm

2012-05-15T20:15:32Z

A team that bats with swords, clearly UNAMERICAN!

We come to the end of another baseball season, the wagons pointed straight home for the postseason, with ground still yet to cover in the final weekend series and the conference tournament in Hoover. But there is one more home match left and it is against our old adversary, the Nicholls St. Kolonels. It's been a banner year for the Commies* (25-25, 12-17 in the Southland), that started off with an opening day win at Southern Miss and non-conference series wins v. ULM and Southeastern on back-to-back weekends. With only 2 conference series wins this season, however, their season may end this weekend as they'll need to sweep S.F. Austin to even reach their post season tournament. Offensively, their numbers aren't that far below LSU's, batting .278 as a team, and they have the reigning LSWA Offensive player of the week in Jeremy Hill (383/509/453 64H 72B 4HR 39RBI). The Commies also love to steal, taking 98 bases out of 113 attempts, something that could be a problem with our current catching situation. Nicholls is starting it's 2nd best starter in Wisecarver tonight, but it looks like he mainly does midweek games. While I'm sure both squads want to win this game, it'll be interesting to see the pitching strategies as both teams have big weekends ahead.

Speaking of pitching strategies, Kurt McCune is getting his first start in more than a month as Eades' continued dip in effectiveness has raised up the alarm that we need another arm for the post season. A good outing tonight could see him get a start in Hoover if needed. Ideally, you want to just win and get home quickly tonight, but consider this: Nicholls has one win against LSU in the last 12 meetings, that win was in 2009, right before LSU started on the path to a National Championship.

Video via the GeauxZone service only, weak chance of a thunderstorm tonight, so we should be fine.

PITCHING MATCHUP via LSUSports.net
LSU - So. RHP Kurt McCune (2-4, 4.21 ERA, 36.1 IP, 13 BB, 22 SO)
NSU - Sr. LHP Mike Wisecarver (1-6, 4.61 ERA, 68.1 IP, 14 BB, 29 SO)

*The whole Nicholls = Communism gag has been running as long as I've been in charge around here, but I have been assured that actual Americans do in fact attend and have graduated from the institution. I've yet to actually meet one, but people I trust say they do exist.

Alexander Named to College Football Hall of Fame - LSUSports.net "BATON ROUGE - Charles Alexander,...

2012-05-15T16:14:48Z

Alexander Named to College Football Hall of Fame - LSUSports.net

"BATON ROUGE - Charles Alexander, a two-time All-American and Heisman Trophy finalist who played at LSU from 1975-78, has been named to the prestigious College Football Hall of Fame, it was announced by the National Football Foundation on Tuesday."

CHARLES ALEXANDER, LSU
TAILBACK, 1975-1978

Career Highlights:
Two-time First-Team All-America (1977 and 1978)
Southeastern Conference Most Valuable Player (1977)
Two-time All-Southeastern Conference (1977 and 1978)
Two-time Heisman Trophy finalist (1977 and 1978)

LSU rushing records held at the time:
Rushing yards in a game - 237 (31 attempts)
Rushing attempts in a game - 43 (231 yards)
Yards per rush in a game - 9.7 (155 yards in 16 attempts)
Rushing touchdowns in a game - 4
Rushing yards in a single-season (1977) - 1,686 (311 attempts)
Rushing attempts in a single-season (1977) - 311 (1,686 yards)
Rushing touchdowns in a single-season (1977) - 17
100-rushing yard games in a single-season (1977) - 7 games
Rushing yards for a career (1975-1978) - 4,035 (855 attempts)
Rushing attempts for a career (1975-1978) - 855 (4,035)
Rushing touchdowns for a career (1975-1978) - 40
100-rushing yard games for a career (1975-1978) - 16 games

LSU records currently held:
Most rushes in a game - 43
Most yards in a season - 1,686
Most yards gained per game in a single-season - 153.3
Most 100 yard games in 1 season - 7 (tied with Kevin Faulk and Steve Van Buren)

Link Gumbo 5/15/12

2012-05-15T13:29:55Z

The above was the most entertaining thing to happen at Alex Box over the weekend as the Tigers got sideswiped by a Vandy team that has now become red hot at exactly the right time. It also didn't help that nearly everything that could go wrong did. Lackluster performances from Nola the Younger and Eades, the rare blown save by Goody, Rhymes going 2 for 12 on the weekend and dropping his BA down to .478, and the sudden loss of Ross behind home plate due to appendicitis all contributed to the series loss, the latter of which allowing Vandy to steal with significant success (9 stolen bases combined Saturday and Sunday) and turning what had been a strength into a potential weakness until Snickeris gets up to speed. Ross is recovering well from the surgery, but won't be back until the final rounds of the SEC tournament at the earliest. The weekend wasn't a total loss though, as Gausman's complete game on Friday earned him SEC Pitcher of the Week.

The standings in the SEC are a bit of a mess with a pair of canceled Sunday games that cannot be made up, but LSU is still in terrific shape. We have locked up the SEC West #1 seed for the tournament and it's 1st and 2nd round byes by way of tiebreaker and can do no worse than finish tied for the division title. The overall SEC regular season championship is now a 4 way race between LSU and UK, SCar, and UF out of the east. After Nicholls St tonight, LSU hits the road for a Thurs-Fri-Sat series at SCar.

After being granted his release last week to look around at other schools, Ralston Turner will be transferring to NC State. The Alabama native will, after sitting out a year, be playing for Mark Gottfried, who originally recruited him when he was with the Crimson TIde. After the break, we've got an interview that Johnny Jones did for WAFB.

Les Miles was on Tim Brando's radio show last week, backing up Nick Saban's opinion that a conference championship should not be required for a team to be included in whatever playoff format emerges.

LSU was ranked #1 in the post-spring pre-season early-summer BlogPoll.

In NFL news, Harry Coleman got picked up as an UDFA by Edmonton of the CFL, Will Blackwell had to move up his wedding due to rookie minicamp at Carolina, and Chad Jones has been cut by the Giants after failing a physical, a significant setback after all the work he and the Giants have put in to get him back to playing shape.

Arkansas is having one helluva off season.

SEC public enemy #1 Harvey Updyke had to be escorted away from the SEC Softball tournament last weekend (LSU is headed to the NCAAs at College Station this weekend)

You know you love'em, here's the SEC football helmet schedule.

All of a sudden there is a ton of talk about Florida State potentially moving to the BXII, and not everyone at FSU is on the same page. Our SBN Blog Bros at Tomahawk Nation have excellent coverage of this madness. Also in realignment news, Boise St might be getting cold feet and Louisville just flat wants out of the Big East.

The USFL is coming back as a spring football league.

Northwestern State's baseball game with La Tech last Wednesday was canceled BECAUSE THE FIELD WAS ON FIRE.

Playoffs Aren't Perfect But So What?

2012-05-14T14:09:35Z

I'm a bit late to the party, what with that whole "new baby" thing. Sorry that your incoherent rants against the football establishment are getting cranked out a week late. But in true LSU fashion, I believe it is better to show up late to the party, once it has already gotten going. Who shows up on time?

Anyway, TSK reviewed the BCS era in a largely-excellent series that you should go read, even if it was published a whole two weeks ago. I know, in internet terms, this means it is already irrelevant. Heaven forbid we have an attention span longer than my two week old child.

The series wraps up with several conclusions to be drawn from the BCS era and the upcoming four-team playoffs, and I hate to disagree with the TSK, but... er... well... I completely disagree with TSK's conclusions. Well, not entirely. Let's take them one at a time:

This is not a panacea for the schools formerly known as non-AQ

Absolutely agree. The big conferences run college football and we have seen them gain power over the last two decades, not lose it. There's a reason the NCAA hasn't moved in to create a playoff with all of the conference champions as automatic qualifiers plus some at large teams to fill out the field - they lack the political capital to do so. The smaller schools have power in the NCAA, and it's reflected in the tournament formats, particularly basketball. It is inclusive over exclusive. In football, the big money schools rule and the only question is how exclusive shall the playoffs be. "Inclusive" is not on the table, nor will it ever be so long as the money schools are in charge.

You didn't like the rematch? Just wait for the playoffs

Here, TSK starts trying to knock over strawmen. The objection is not, nor has it ever been, "all rematches are bad." Rematches predate the BCS (think Florida-FSU, though no one was happy about it then, either). To reduce the argument against the LSU-Alabama rematch to simply "people are against rematches" is reductive to the point that it completely misconstrues the argument.

The argument is against rematches that are wholly unearned. Alabama got a rematch against LSU by simply not losing.* Alabama lost at home to LSU, and then got a title shot without winning its conference. Alabama avoided playing an extra game against the East champ, and they also, through a quirk of scheduling, avoided playing Georgia and South Carolina entirely. Yes, the SEC was the toughest conference in the country. However, five teams posted a winning conference record, and Alabama went 1-1 against them in the regular season. The SEC is a lot easier if you don't play half of the top tier teams.

*Ed Note - This is not to complain about Alabama's title. The system is the system, and Alabama won fair and square in the system that was in place. The question is not whether Bama's title is legitimate, as it clearly is. If we didn't want to complain about Bama's title, we should have beaten them on January 9^th. The question is whether this system should stay in place going forward. It has no bearing on Bama's title.

Compare this to the NFL's rematch. Sure, the Giants got a rematch in the title game (against a team they beat in the regular season). In order to earn that rematch, the Giants won their division (not the hardest thing in the world, admittedly). Then they won three playoff games, two of them on the road, against two of the best teams in football. The reason that no one bitched about the Super Bowl rematch is that the Giants played their way into the game, they weren't simply placed in the game by an opinion poll.

Fans accept rematches in every other sport not because they love rematches but because the sport can justify the rematch by results on the field. If Alabama earned a rematch by having to beat Oregon or Stanford, there would have been a lot less complaining about it. They wouldn't have just been anointed the challenger by the BCS acting like a shady boxing promoter.

What would it have meant for the SEC?

Let me answer this the only way college football fans should: WHO CARES?

This is the biggest problem with college football - everyone just looks at their own grubby self-interest instead of what's best for the game. If the SEC has the best teams, they will win the title. End of story. SEC fans shouldn't be trying to advocate for what's best for the SEC, but what's best for football... we'll win the title regardless.

Know what's best for the SEC? Whichever system chooses a champion based primarily on merit. And if the SEC doesn't win the title that season, it's still what's good for the SEC because the best team won. The best team winning the title is what's best for every conference, every team, and every fan. The thought "what about my team or my conference?" shouldn't even cross your head when trying to design a postseason format. The only goal you should have is "what is the best format that is most likely to crown the best team champion?" Everything else is bullshit.

There are still going to be complaints

Well, no crap. The key isn't eliminating complaints but reducing legitimate complaints. This isn't a small minority of fans complaining about the BCS, it's an overwhelming majority. It's not LSU fans bitching about being screwed*, it's pretty much every neutral fan who stayed away from the title game in droves. The current system is broken, refusing to fix it because we can't create the perfect system is no argument at all. Change tends to be gradual, so let's fix what's broken and then keep fixing what needs to be fixed as life goes on. When people complain, let's evaluate those complaints and see if we need to act on them.

TSK included some subpoints, which I'd also like to address.

The first is that sticking to a rigid set of rankings is probably a bad idea. I'm a little bit different than Year2 on this, but not much. There should be a selection committee of people who follow the game, and they should have access to all the polls and the computer data, and they should take into account who won their conference and who didn't and who had the tougher schedules. There should probably be some standards to keep the committee from doing something insane, but those rules should be as general and as few as possible.

I couldn't agree more. There are many issues with the BCS, but the ridiculous BCS formula is pretty high on the list. We all understand the formula is just the opinion polls with the illusion of mathematics behind it, right? The one time the BCS poll churned out something different than the polls, we changed the formula to make sure that never happened again. The problem here is that no one respects the BCS formula, so when it churns out a different result from the poll, it lacks the credibility to have people buy in. Scrap it.

The second is that setting up a playoff system to try to reduce uncertainty in selecting a champion is a pointless exercise. There will be uncertainty if there are four teams in the playoffs or eight or 32. College basketball has almost 70 teams in its tournament and there are stillarguments about whether the selection committee passed over a deserving team for an undeserving one.

Yes and no. Yes, people complain about the basketball committee, but only for a day or two, and that's just because we are waiting for actual games to be played. No one seriously suggests that a title contender gets left out of the field, just that it would be nice for certain teams to get the reward of losing ni the first round.

But I absolutely agree that there are so many teams that picking the best two, or even the best four, is patently absurd. There's just not enough data to sort through 120 teams, playing a 12-game schedule. We can make an educated guess who the best team is, but it's still a guess. This gets into TSK's fear of playoff creep, which is not unjustified. It's just impossible to say with any certainty who the best four teams are. There just aren't enough games to "link" the conferences.

Those establishing the college football playoffs have to walk a fine line here -- creating the best postseason for the sport while still preserving one of the most important regular seasons in the world.

I agree with that, but I also think TSK is too late to the party. The BCS has already eroded the regular season and I think we need a playoff to stop this erosion. We just crowned a team that failed to win its conference the national champion for the first time since 1936. Say what you will, that's an incredibly radical event. Out of conference schedules have grown increasingly weaker under the BCS, as teams schedule to simply not lose. The regular has already been devalued compared to the pre-BCS era, and the conference-only playoff partisans are actually arguing to restore value back to the regular season.

Preserving the regular season's value as well as a century's worth of tradition are valuable goals. They are goals I share with TSK, we just disagree on how to accomplish these goals. Here's to a great debate. Hopefully, we don't screw this up.