I know there are a lot more metrics that go into hosting but for simplicity that's fielding a top 15 team 6 times a decade. I'm not ignoring past history but 6 times a decade doesn't seem unreasonable with our program today but I'm open to being wrong and having my expectations be too high....just not too low.
I hear you, but the item that most people miss is how much volatility exists in college baseball as a whole. There are no dynasties. No “Alabama football” or “UConn basketball” type programs have ever existed in college baseball, nor will they ever. It takes a tremendous amount of great recruiting and luck just to get 3 top 15-16 regular seasons in a decade.
Think about all the factors that go into it:
1) Programs have to be pot-committed to their best recruits for 4+ years….starting when they are freshmen or sophomores in high school. Have to hope you guess right more than you guess wrong as to whether the kid with huge exit velocity can figure out how to hit a D1 curve ball, or whether the pitcher who throws 89 when he’s 15 will be able to throw 95 when he’s 18. Even when you know by the time they finish senior year that you probably got it wrong (which might just mean they are still really talented, but are just too raw to develop much in the college ranks), more often than not you still gotta bring the kid on for at least a year before processing them….just to keep good relations for future recruits.
2) The draft. Every year is a case of crossing your fingers that at least 2-3 of your studs decide to come to school instead of going pro.
3) TJ surgery. Easily the biggest wild card for everyone. It’s not even a matter of “if”, but rather “who” and “how many” you’re going to lose every single 17ing year. Every year.
4) The portal / NIL. Newest wildcard. Just increases volatility for everyone. Only about 3-4 programs can expect to get a net positive here every single year. We aren’t one of them.
5) Scholarship limits. Obviously big changes are possibly on the horizon here, but until that happens we are all mostly operating under the historical status quo here. At a high level, it means you get punished severely for mis-evaluating a player, or even for correctly evaluating and prioritizing a player that ends up either going pro out of HS, getting hurt, or leaving in the portal.
6) Volatility of the sport of baseball in general. Only sport where a Coastal Carolina or a 3-seed Fresno State can both get hot at the right moment and legitimately win a national title without any prior history or prestige in their favor whatsoever.
All of the above is how MSU / OM can each win a national title and then follow it up with 2 straight years of suck. It’s how UF and LSU can play each other for the national title and then both finish 4 games under .500 in conference play the very next season. It’s how LSU - the most historically prestigious program, with the highest attendance and most rabid fanbase, and most recruiting / NIL advantages on anyone - can themselves still only host 6 times in 10 years.
Simply put, MSU baseball cannot be as consistently good as many of our fans expect us to be, and the main reason for that is that nobody else can, either.
