Maybe you should switch your allegiance to the Gamecocks. They obviously don't spend money on Baseball. Their attendance at baseball is right on level with the club sport y'all call it. They have a 78,000 capacity football stadium and have hired big name coaches in the past. Of course I don't think they are much more successful than we are in football over the past 20 years.
Yeah, I played rugby for State, a club sport for us, so I can tell you what a HUGE difference it is between representing State in baseball vs an actual club sport, even one as exciting and entertaining as rugby can be.
Baseball hasn't been nearly as big as the other 2 Big 3 sports for a very, very long time, but it remains a Big 3 sport nonetheless, and the one sport we always felt we could take pride in, brag about and enter almost every season justifiably believing we had an excellent chance of making it to Omaha, and would some day get that NC we so narrowly missed before. I still thank God we finally won our NC before NIL & transfer rules had a chance to poison what was best about college baseball.
I'm torn between my decades of loyalty, fandom, seasonal optimism, etc. and my ability to actually give much of a damn anymore since players of these sports are no longer "us", but "them"...hired guns or employees on the payroll who happen to have the mild connection of being required to actually take some classes to stay eligible.
That said, I'd rather have a legit chance to be truly excellent in any of the Big 3, even at the cost of maybe not being quite as competitive in one or both of the others when the other 2, especially football are pretty much now about who can and will spend the most money to buy a potential championship.
We cannot and will not outspend enough teams to be remotely a contender within the current semi-pro structure. In baseball, we can still compete, at least until enough other schools decide to price us out-of-the-market in that too.
Want a good look at what a joke NIL and transfer rules have become? Look no further than Texas Tech. When schools don't give a **** how much they have to outspend and/or lose money, they can buy themselves a golden ticket. Hell, TT made a multi-millionaire out of a freakin' women's softball pitcher! And all that oil-money is buying them into any and every other sport they decide to.
"Oh yay! Look at us...we are better at buying athletes than anybody else!" I knew as soon as this NIL **** started to look likely that it would screw us, and pretty much take all the special out of what used to be amateur college sports.
Yet, I still can't help but pull for our guys, though I have lost probably 80% of my give-a-**** since NIL.
Sorry, didn't mean to ramble. I'm in a pretty rare foul mood today. Almost 65 years old and I'm feeling like I wish I could get in a good old-fashioned fist-fight with an ******* so I could just take out all my frustrations on that bastard!
www.ncaa.com
