Mickey Plyler's Blog for April 25 |
864-834-6060 Thank you for being a Tiger Source member. Mickey's blog will be released to Tiger Source members first. Baseball Notes of Interest The Clemson baseball team has been ranked very high in the unofficial RPI all season. One reason is the difficult schedule but some ask, “How do bad losses affect the seeding for the regional and super-regional?” In college baseball today there are few bad losses. The mid-majors continue to make their marks during mid-week games and the conference’s bottom have has beaten the top half on some occasions. Here is a look at some upsets (not bad losses) in the ACC baseball season so far: Clemson - @Boston College (1), Mercer (1), Western Carolina (1), Furman (1), Winthrop (1). Only one of those came on the weekend. Virginia did sweep Clemson. Georgia Tech- @Maryland (2), @ Virginia Tech (1). FSU - @ Virginia Tech (1). Another factor-FSU has lost five straight games. Miami-Winthrop (2) and has been swept by Florida (3). North Carolina - UNC-Greensboro (1). NC State - UCLA (3). Wake Forest-UNC-Wilmington (2), Charlotte, Coastal, Winthrop, Elon, Davidson. The bottom four teams in the ACC (VT, Duke, BC, Maryland) have nine wins over the top of the league: Virginia Tech beat FSU (1) and Georgia Tech (1). Duke beat Virginia (1). Boston College beat Clemson (1). Maryland beat Georgia tech (2). Miami (1), UNC (1), WF (1). Currently 10 of the ACC teams have played 21 conference games. Clemson has only played 18 and Maryland has played 24. The Tigers and Wake Forest are tied with a .667 winning percentage atop the Atlantic Division. Clemson is 12-6 and Wake is 14-7. FSU and NC State trail with 13-8 records. At this time all four have a shot to win the division and all four would make it to the NCAA regionals. In the Coastal Division, UNC (15-6) has a two game lead over Georgia Tech and Virginia. Miami is three games back at 12-9. Again, all four teams in this division can still win their division and all four should make it to the NCAA. At this time I think it is very safe to say eight ACC teams get in the NCAA tournament with Maryland, Boston College, Duke and Virginia Tech staying home. Of the 16 regionals, I think UNC, GT, FSU and Clemson have the best shot to host regionals at this time, but I have no idea about the super-regionals or seeding. Obviously there is too much baseball left to play, but with Virginia Tech, Duke, FSU and WF as the remaining foes, Clemson controls its destiny. One final note, the ACC tournament is in Jacksonville, (for some odd reason) and only the top eight teams make it to the tournament. It is double-elimination, but the teams are seeded one through eight without reference to division. Remember Way Back When? Remember all of the talk about how Maryland won 31 games in Ralph Friedgen’s first three seasons and how the Terps were building something special? Since then Maryland is 10-12 and 6-10 in the ACC. Remember all of the talk about Al Groh’s recruiting classes at Virginia and how they were going to play checkers instead of chess like the other ACC schools? Groh is 37-21 at UVA and 21-19 in the ACC. Checkmate. Remember back when Chuck Amato led NCSU to an 11-3 mark in 2002? The talk in Raleigh was all about FSU North. Since then Amato has gone 20-16 including 10-14 in the ACC. Overall he is 23-25 in the ACC and a long way from FSU North. Remember when Miami was invited to the league, and people said they would dominate the conference? Well this must not be the Big East, because the Canes are 11-5 in the league and only have six losses overall. Chan Gailey is another former NFL head coach and his ACC record is 17-15. Tom O’Brien went 5-3 in his first ACC season. UNC’s John Bunting is 16-24 in the league. Call me crazy, but considering his situation Jim Grobe’s 13-27 record at Wake Forest is very impressive, and I love the way Ted Roof coaches. No one coaches harder than Roof, so in my opinion his 3-17 ACC record is more reflective of his situation at Duke instead of his coaching ability. Other Football Notes From Around the ACC Can someone explain how LSU beat Miami 40-3 in the Peach Bowl last year? Also, how did Miami get to this? Here is a look at the number of true freshmen that played at each school last year: Duke-14 FSU-12 Virginia-11 Miami-9 Clemson-8 Georgia Tech-8 North Carolina-7 Maryland-7 NC State-6 Wake Forest-4 BC-2 VT-1Mickey's new Blog brought to you by:
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