• Goags20172
    162
    is not up yet. It's not entirely surprising considering many other schools haven't done so either. In fact I've only seen two so far- Nevada and Sac State- and neither of them are playing the Aggies. It will be the second year in a row of no baseball Causeway Classic. Looks like Sac State either didn't want to waste their non-conference games on UCD or they had serious doubts about the Aggies' ability to even show up.

    Two things they have in common are few, if any, mid-week games and weekend doubleheaders. Nevada is playing double round robins in conference play while the Hornets are increasing their weekend conference series from 3 to 4 games.

    Since Yolo County's recent draconian restrictions have taken effect I wonder if UCD's season won't meet the same agonizing torture as basketball before its ultimate cancellation. Probably won't prevent them from releasing a schedule in any case. What these two opponents have done so far is give us a glimpse as to what post-Covid 19 schedules might look like.. less travel and more games in one spot to operate with smaller budgets.

    What I wouldn't mind seeing (that will never happen) is breaking up all the D-I conferences permanently and making new ones that are only geographically-based, to mirror the high school model and reduce travel. In my opinion the college experience doesn't need to include a bunch of short sports vacations at the university's expense. You want to go to Florida ? Win lots of games and go to the playoffs. From a fan perspective it was more interesting when UCD was playing closer rivals. "Sorry, but I don't give a good golly gosh darn about UC Riverside," said every non-UCR fan ever.
  • Goags20172
    162
    It's a pain to edit stuff on my mobile device so I'm having to reply to myself like some kind of narcissist.

    Would definitely like to see the WCC broken up. All those schools have in common is that they are super-expensive private institutions with church affiliations, and not even the same church. If their aim is to only play like-minded schools then why don't they include Seattle U ? Surely the Redhawks would rather play Gonzaga and other West Coast schools instead of teams from Utah and Texas ? And if religion is at all a factor, then why do they deign to play all of the "unenlightened" public schools ? I think religion is not a factor but money definitely is. I think if God were to look at their tuitions even he would declare them ungodly.
  • Goags20172
    162
    I have confirmed via their website that Logan Denholm is playing for Sac State now. This was only made possible by COVID-19.
  • FullertonBaseballFan
    10
    Cal Baptist is playing a series up there March 5-7. Those are the only games I have seen scheduled for UC Davis with so few schedules released.

    The Big West is playing four game series this year instead of the usual three game series. DH's every Sat, still TBD if both games will be 7 innings on Sat or if one game will be 9 innings and the other game will be 7 innings on Sat.
  • Goags20172
    162
    I saw the Cal Baptist games too. I think even now UCD is trying to finalize a schedule :

    https://collegebaseballinsider.com/open-dates/2021-open-dates/&ved=2ahUKEwjrlfSU-cHuAhXMITQIHUYqBosQFjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw0TpZUBOhRZaWsMKX97qa8i

    Even as of 1/16 they were still looking for games, saying they must be in CA this year. That puts a real limit on the teams they can play on the road, so at least one of those weekends may just stay vacant. Wonder how that will work with Hawaii ? This year would've been UCD's year to visit them. Perhaps they will either make that the 1 exception or the Big West will simply roll out last year's schedule that wasn't played and work in CSUB and UCSD into teams' open weekends + start a week earlier ?
  • Goags20172
    162
    A couple of interesting updates. The Aggies are hosting Washington State for 4 opening week (2/19-2/21). In a real surprise Pepperdine will be visiting for 3 the weekend after Cal Baptist. It'll be split over just two days (3/12-13).

    Update- 2/28-3/1 Portland comes in for 3. I believe that wraps up the first 4 weeks. That also will likely mean the sum total of their non-conference games because they have 40 games against 10 conference teams after that.
  • Goags20172
    162
    It's now up on the website. They also added a 3 game (over 2 weeks) home series against San Jose State during what would be their conference bye week. The Pepperdine series is now 4 games. Only out of state trip is Hawaii. It is split evenly with 5 home BWC and 5 on the road but interestingly CSUB and UCSD are both on the road, so there had to be some shifting. UCD usually (in my memory) doesn't play Cal Poly and Irvine at home the same year it hosts Fullerton and UCR.

    As to the series structure it is 4 games on the weekend with Saturday double-headers, as Fullertonbaseballfan has indicated.

    I like this new structure and hope it sticks. Grouping the games for the week into one series will force teams to avoid abusing their favorite relief arms, whom they know can't go 4 games in a row or twice in the same day without risking severe injury. No throwing starters out on a Tuesday to try to close out games. There's also built-in rest of at least 4 days for everyone after Sunday games are concluded.

    If the double-header games are both 7 innings that would be even better. This, and the other changes would seem to level the playing field a bit for UCD. They'll have to come up with a fourth starter but so will all the other teams. Many D-I schools aren't 4 or even 3 strong starters deep, so that Sunday game is a true wild card. That's an extra chance not to get swept. Of course teams don't necessarily have to pitch their weakest starter on Sunday with the DH's.

    Also, 7 inning games in doubleheaders would favor the Aggies a bit. Typically their best pitchers are in the rotation already, except for the closer, who is typically the guy who would start if they played 1 more game per weekend series. The rest of the bullpen is an adventure typically. Win or lose, the less they have to go to the bullpen the better. Blowouts will be over more quickly.
  • AggieFinn
    418
    18 Home games to start the season? That's pretty nice.
  • Goags20172
    162
    I read in the Davis Enterprise they were supposed to visit UOP and Loyola Marymount after the series with the cougars. I believe there might have been a scheduling conflict with Pacific and LA- forget about it. And no resumption of the Northern Colorado series so,

    No Lions and Tigers, and Bears...oh my !
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