Does anyone have a sense for how good Penn State Baseball is going to be this year?
- Thread starter OldFrog26
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Every year is a "transitional" year with Cooper. Must have some really good pictures of the powers that be.
Penn State has been playing baseball for 130 years and has rarely risen above mediocrity. This year will be no different. This university has had some terrific sports programs through the years but there has never been the desire to make a serious commitment to baseball. I doubt there ever will be. There may come a time when it will be necessary to cut a number of men's and women's sports. If so, baseball should be near the top of the men's list. I know scores of Penn State grads and in any discussion of sports, baseball is never mentioned. Fencing comes up far more often and I can count on 1 finger the number of alums who have been to a fencing match (me). Dump the team. They are historically bad and no one cares.
PSU was in the college World Series in 1973 and haven’t been back, IIRC. Almost 50 years of futility. Baseball would be on my list of cut sports if/when it comes to that.
Penn State will never have a top baseball team no matter the manager. Their first home game is Mar 15. How many of the top high school players want to play baseball in Pennsylvania in March when they have dozens of offers to play in warm weather locations?
How can that be?
Along with Nebraska, Penn State has the finest - and most expensive - baseball facilities in the Big Ten. Medlar Field at Lubrano Park puts most of Penn State's competitors to shame, with regard to quality of facilities.
And, as we all know, in college athletics, success is all about the mandatory level of spending on facilities.
PSU baseball = PSU basketball = Long Term Traditional Ineptitude
Accepted as norm.
Accepted as norm.
For what it is worth, on the Women's side, the Penn State squad doesn't even play in the Big Girl conference (the WCHA - the Big Ten, of course, doesn't have enough teams to have a conference for Women's Ice Hockey)) with the other Big Ten Women's programs (of which, there are only 3, I think - Ohio State Wisconsin and Minnesota). They, Penn State, play in the CHA - with Robert Morris, Mercyhurst, Syracuse, Lindenwood, and RIT. Robert Morris may have dropped hockey - I think they were at least considering it - so that may be out of date. To the best of my recollection, they have never been in the NCAA tourney - but that is just off the top of my head from memory.
The Men are in their 9th year of Big Ten conference play. They won the conference regular season title in 2020 (and, as bad luck would have it, had the post season wiped out due to COVID protocols). Other than that, they had one season where they finished in the upper half of the Big Ten (2015? Somewhere around there).
They do have top shelf facilities though.
I don't expect PSU baseball to contend for national championships. There is no reason, other than administrative incompetence, for it not to be competitive in the Big Ten.
If you really want to know the problem just look at who has won in Omaha. In the last 50 years Oregon State is the only champ that is not from the south, southwest or California. Michigan (2019) is the only true northern school to play for the title since 1976.
The jump start the other programs is just too great to overcome. This year the season begins February 18th.
The jump start the other programs is just too great to overcome. This year the season begins February 18th.
I'm reluctant to find myself agreeing with GrimReaper (Art), but he's right on this: being a cold weather school, it's unrealistic to expect PSU to contend for a baseball national championship, but there's no good reason why we shouldn't be competing for a B1G championship. (Same with softball.)
Rob Cooper is well-liked and well-respected in the coaching profession, but he hasn't been able to get the PSU baseball team over the hump during his tenure. Cooper had a successful run with Wright State and USA Baseball prior to PSU, but he's 147-216 (40%) overall and 52-129 (28%) in the B1G through eight seasons at the helm of the Nittany Lions. I'm a bit surprised he hasn't recruited better relative to other B1G schools. If Cooper's program continues to struggle, Sandy may leave Rob's fate to the next AD.
Rob Cooper is well-liked and well-respected in the coaching profession, but he hasn't been able to get the PSU baseball team over the hump during his tenure. Cooper had a successful run with Wright State and USA Baseball prior to PSU, but he's 147-216 (40%) overall and 52-129 (28%) in the B1G through eight seasons at the helm of the Nittany Lions. I'm a bit surprised he hasn't recruited better relative to other B1G schools. If Cooper's program continues to struggle, Sandy may leave Rob's fate to the next AD.
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That is certainly very true - as it relates to playing for a National Title in baseball.
Competing with the other Big Ten programs - Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio State, Nebraska and so on - Penn State will have to find another excuse, aside from weather or "facilities" to alibi their way out of that one.
For what it is worth, Penn State baseball went to the NCAA Playoffs 16 times prior to joining the Big Ten, and to the College World Series 5 times. That was, I believe, at the time more NCAA appearances than any Big Ten team had accumulated - aside from Minnesota (which, of course, had the advantage of the southern (Minnesota) climate).
The single most impactful thing that could improve Penn State Athletics - not just Baseball - would be if they could go back in time and never hire Sandy Barbour:
Penn State Athletics: Seven Years of Sandy Barbour, Part I - On-Field Results (substack.com)
The second most impactful thing they could do is to fire Barbour today. Preferably before lunch.
Indiana and Michigan have had very good teams over the years. No reason why Cooper can t at least be competitive
According to his PG page, that kid is skinnier, has less velo, is slower, and appears to have a much slower bat than my kid ... and he's playing "down" (so a 2024 grad playing with the 14U last year, when grade-based would put him up with the 15Us) in travel ball.
And my kid's a 2026. And not on anyone's radar as yet.
That may be why they're struggling, offering 2024 kids like that.
I could go to any of 5 local travel organizations (in New England, not exactly a baseball hotbed), and their 2024 rosters will have 90% of their kids with better measurables than this kid ... and a lot of those kids will end up going D3, or to some blah D2 or really bad local D1 school. And none of them are seriously fielding offers right now. If you're a 2024 and getting offers from D1 schools, you're an absolute grown-man beast.
Vandy recruits up here. Other decent ACC schools sniff around and occasionally pull recruits. Even Pitt has pulled some local recruits recently. I've never heard anyone mention PSU, though.
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I'm in central Maryland for not far from this kid and I have two sophomores on my team who are both faster than him have more throwing velocity and better batting exit velocity than this kid. I also have a junior pitcher who's throwing 88 and Penn State isn't interested in any of them but yet ACC schools are talking to them. Doesn't make any sense.
I watched this game, very fun.
I noticed some of the PSU batters wore a belt buckle the size of an IPad. Does anyone have a clue what this is?
A lot of college teams have wristbands with a number system on them for their place that they use. Instead of wearing it as a wristband that young man wore it around his belt.
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