Rivals College Baseball Editor Kendall Rogers has put out some interesting articles over the last week. The first article focuses on some head coaches around the nation that have failed to live up to expectations. He lists South Florida’s Lelo Prado as disappointing in his first two years in Tampa. I tend to disagree with Rogers since it takes longer then two years to develop a solid program. He brings up Tony Gwynn who has been an absolute disaster with the San Diego State program over the last six years only finishing over .500 in 2004 with a 35-29 record and in 2008 when they went 31-28. Read the rest of this entry »

Pat Murphy brings in another strong class

The College Baseball Newspaper released their rankings for the Top Recruiting classes for the 2009 season. It is led by Arizona State University for the third time in the 26th year existence of the rankings. They will welcome a 20 recruit class to Tempe in the spring with 15 incoming freshmen and 5 junior college transfers. Out of the 20 recruits, 13 of them were selected in the 2008 MLB Draft. Oregon comes in second place in the rankings with their 30 recruits joining George Horton in Eugene for the return of UO baseball. Vanderbilt, Arkansas, and Georgia round out the Top 5. Read the rest of this entry »

Our good friend Kendall Rogers of Rivals has been putting out some great articles about many different conferences and teams recently. He checked in yesterday with a preview of the ACC conference heading into the Fall Ball workouts. Read the rest of this entry »

South Carolina New Baseball Stadium

FROM CBB NEWS SOURCE

Gamecocks set to welcome new baseball stadium

“There will not be a more impressive college baseball stadium in the country.” Those are the words of Athletic Director Eric Hyman in reference to USC’s new ballpark that will be opening in time for this year’s season.

Carolina fans sorrowfully said goodbye to Sarge Frye Field last year, a stadium rife with countless memories of players, coaches and unforgettable games. Nestled right below the Roost, the Sarge was the home site of Carolina baseball for 29 great seasons.

Read the rest of this entry »

I know it is early but we have come across two schedules for the 2009 season.

The first one is the University of Oregon who returns to playing College Baseball after a long absence. They will be led by longtime Cal-State Fullerton coach George Horton who is assembling a great team for the Ducks. They will open the season on Feb. 20th when they start a four game set at Saint Mary’s. The Ducks will open up their new home stadium on Feb. 27th against defending National Champion Fresno State as they visit for a three game set. Following that visit, they will head to Washington for two non-conference games. Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE DIRECT LINK AVAILABLE HERE
Host David Miller of “Think Out Loud” a radio show on Oregon Public Radio recently contacted us about being a guest on his recent show about the upcoming baseball season. They discuss what people in Oregon do without having a professional team to follow like many people around the nation. Oregon does have one of the best baseball programs in the nation with Oregon State and University of Oregon will be adding the program starting next school year. The full show will be available soon on their website which is available here.

We are always welcoming to media members who want us as guests on their shows or a guest column.

CSTV has started up their season preview with Doug Kroll checking in with two-time National Champion Oregon State. They have become a power in the Northwest as they have been to the CWS three times over the last 3 seasons with the back to back national titles in the last two seasons. OSU’s recent success has made the Oregon Ducks bring back their baseball program in 2009. The full article from CSTV is available here.

The University of Oregon has put out plans for their new baseball facility which comes with a price tag of $12-15 million. They have already made an agreement with the Eugene Emeralds to play in the facility as soon as the 2010 season. The first phase of the stadium will be finished by the start of the 2009 season. The second phase will be completed soon after. The full press release from Oregon is available here. The Oregon Daily Emerald also checks in with an article which can be read here.

CSTV Editor Doug Kroll checks in with his weekly article about some of the off-season coaching moves.  The biggest move was George Horton heading to Oregon to restart the Duck program. This set off a chain reaction as UC-Irvine head coach Dave Serrano went to Fullerton while former USC coach Mike Gillespie came out of retirement to take over the UC-Irvine job. He also talks about Kevin O’Sullivan who took over Florida after being an assistant with Clemson, Turtle Thomas went down to Florida International from Arizona State where he was a longtime assistant, and finally with Todd Raliegh taking over Tennessee after being the head coach at Western Carolina. The full article is available here.

The Oregon Daily Emerald has published an article discussing some of the challenges George Horton is facing at the University of Oregon. He has decided to go after some high caliber recruits who will likely be drafted on Day 1 of the MLB draft and might never see the Eugene campus. The full article is available here.

George Horton has received his first commitment for the 2009 season in Darrell Hunter of Thurston High School. Hunter is expected to play shortstop for the Ducks. Hunter turned down two time national champions Oregon State who offered Hunter a 25 percent scholarship but Oregon offered a 35 percent scholarship which forced Hunter to commit immediately. Oregon Live checks in with an article here. Jacob May of The Oregon Daily Emerald talks about the commitment and about George Horton here.

Kendall Rogers of Rivals.com has been busy churning out quality content. Some of his latests items include:

- A rundown of the issues for SEC teams in 2008

- The same rundown for Big 12 squads

- A pre-Fall listing of the top 25 teams heading into the next season (not really a top 25, but rather a 25 teams to watch, listed in alphabetical order).

In his latest Mailbag, Kendall also discusses Irvine, Wake Forest, Oregon and Oregon State, and the differences between Fresno State and San Diego.

Mark Etheridge of SEBaseball.com checks in with an article about many different topics. The first topic which is discussed is the whole Oregon/UC-Irvine/Fullerton musical chair act that has been going on all summer including Rod Delmonico (former head coach at Tennessee) throwing his name in the hat at UC-Irvine. The next topic discussed is how Dave Perno of UGA has had to change up his staff for the 2008 season with an assistant coach moving on to a different school. He finishes up the article by talking about some of winners and losers in the summer in getting transfers. The full article is available here.

Doug Kroll of CSTV has recently checked in with an article about the prospects of bringing baseball back at some of the other BCS schools without the sport. He spoke with Wisconsin’s AD Barry Alvarez and other administrators around the nation about the challenges they are facing in bringing back the sport. His full article is available here.

Baseball America is reporting that Dave Serrano will accept the head coaching position with Cal-State Fullerton after saying last week that he was going to stay at UC-Irvine. The article from Baseball America is available here. The College Baseball Blog will have more information as it becomes available.