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

You should come to Austin for the LSU-Texas series in a couple of weeks.  I have other commitments Saturday evening but am currently planning on going to the Friday and Sunday games.

So can I show up to Disch-Falk with a "We're Texas and y'all ain't" t-shirt?  Or would that just be confusing?

Just checking in........

Look at the Volunteer fans who all of a sudden discovered the existence of college baseball in 2024!

Well, more like 2021, but point taken --- and valid.

What ranking is that?  Last thing I saw had A&M #1. 

The latest and greatest.  I think it is 2 days old.

I don't keep up with it.  The only source I read daily is an LSU site that uses D1Baseball, when he talks about rankings.  Which he hasn't, since the start of season, or before.  I thought he mentioned A&M being #1 last time he said anything. 

Nobody in their right mind cares about or believes a ranking like that at this point, with this many new pieces.  Only thing I take from it is I keep in the back of my mind who is likely to be our toughest outs in a season.  i.e., if A&M was ranked #1 at any point, it's probably going to be a tough series. 

And of course, there's always the years where we think we have a good team, but don't, and those Top 25 opponents go from "tough outs" to "we're going to lose another series." 

Ugh.  Baseball stresses me out.  It's so much more obvious to me, so much quicker, what kind of football team we have.  After 1 or 2 games I pretty well know how the season will go even though I can't predict exactly where the L's are coming from.  Baseball is a different animal.  Weeks drag on, and I still wonder how they'll be able to do.  Actually, it never ends, because baseball is so much more individual-dependent whereas football is more team-dependent.  In baseball, we may have the best hitter in the country and the best college pitcher I've ever seen, as with a couple seasons ago, but if they have an off night, or if another team has a stud who's just better that day, or the pitcher isn't pitching that game, etc., the outcomes can swing more wildly.  In football, often a guy having a bad day is usually mitigated by the others around them.  

I'm pretty much the opposite with baseball, compared to MDT above.  There are so many more games, and the weekend-series structure means you can lose a game but still "win" against an opponent.  Each individual game is less stressful so they're each just so much more enjoyable to me.

Sure, the team can tank, lose a series, lose a bunch of series, or whatever.  But Texas has won NCs under numerous head coaches in numerous eras, and I just don't worry that we'll never get back to the promised land, in the same way I do with football.

To me there's almost nothing more pleasant than an afternoon or evening in the spring out at Disch-Falk, watching the Horns play baseball.  Or, just sitting at the tailgate outside the gates, with the radio on,  and just listening to the sounds of the game.  It's so relaxing.

What I didn't mention above, which plays a big role in how I find it hard to gauge the team, is how it seems there's more variance in how baseball players play from game to game compared to football players.  At least for us.  After a couple games in football, I pretty well see what the team is and the individuals perform pretty consistently.  In baseball, it's common for all but a couple of our best players to have ups and downs, and you never know when they're coming.  And even the best players have slumps.  Slumps are not common on our football team.  

Trying to think through it, from a single-game perspective, it probably has to do with a guy playing so many more plays in a football game than a baseball game.  A RT might have some bad plays, but over the course of 40-50 plays, he is what he is.  An outfielder might get 4-5 at-bats and a handful of chances to field a ball.  If he has bad plays, it hurts way worse.