The SEC Forum at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I'm no baseball guru, but I guess the adage of "good pitching beats good hitting" still is reasonably true over the aggregate. 
That is, in order to be a contender, you're going to need 2-3 starters you absolutely can depend on. It's unlikely you're winning championships if 13-9 is the score of most of your games, you're probably not winning a trophy. You're bound to run into a guy that will keep that in the 3-4 run range. You'll need arms to match it.

Texas has like 1 1/2 reliable pitchers, and our 1 reliable one was (a) not that reliable and (b) a victim of hilariously ill times defensive miscues. That said, 7-1 or 3-1 is still a loss. If Texas couldn't get more than 1 run (and that aided by UGA mistakes), they weren't winning even if Volantis were brilliant.

Texas' #6 ranking is probably about right.

Errors are the Great Separator in Omaha, I've often thought.  I think there's something to experience there and not letting the moment do you in.  I felt bad for WVU last night.  Costly errors by their 3B and then 2B is what ultimately bit them.  It's one thing to play a clean game and get beat by a team who was better that day.  When you commit errors, it often feels like you beat yourself.  

I've seen plenty of our teams make some errors in the regular season and overcome them, especially at home.  I also saw what I considered the best team we ever assembled go 2&Q in Omaha, in no small part due to two uncharacteristic errors.  The competition in Omaha is too stiff for mistakes, and the pressure is too great.  The miscues were the result of nerves, which were the result of not having been to the CWS in 4 years, with nobody on that team having been on the previous team to make it.  Getting knocked out of their own Super the year before had ramifications far beyond ending that one season, I believe.  Had they made that trip the year before, I think they'd have handled the next year better.  As it was, the greatest team of ours I ever saw (imo) squandered their potential.  

Recruiting college baseball, even with NIL, has to be really weird. I mean, you can go directly from high school to being a mega-paid player (usually pitcher) in the MLB system. They have the money to fund even a reasonably likely prospect at a level that collegiate NIL just can't touch. Spend all your time convincing great talent to attend your school and play for your team - then watch them all accept their draft slot paycheck and not show up.

Seems like you gotta recruit good-but-not-great talent, then learn to improve them. From what I gather, Texas has a couple of coaches in Tulo and Weiner that do just that.

All true but this is nothing new, it's always been this way in college baseball-- the best players, the ones with real MLB prospects, will sign with a university but then get drafted and go play under a big contract in the minors.

If anything, player retention is probably now easier in college baseball because a top level university might be able to retain a decent but not spectacular picthing prospect at higher pay than he'd get as a 12th round draft pick.  And he can always enter the draft again next year.

I always thought Paul Mainieri really struggled with that.  He spent a lot of effort recruiting and signing guys who never made it to campus because the Braves AA club was a better deal.  Good recruiters expect that kind of thing, of course, and ideally plan accordingly.  He wasn't bad at it, but it seemed like a lot of his years included a lot of pitching staffs that were good but not great because he put so much emphasis on signing a couple of aces he was counting on who never dressed out for us. 

Yeah that loser only won, what, 2 or 3 NCs?