Monday, February 15, 2010

Now You Know What the North Has to Endure


For years, the Southeast has had it good in January and February. There’s nothing quite like practicing outdoors in the weeks prior to the start of the season. But the last week or so, teams as far south as Florida have had to endure what everyone north of the Mason Dixon line has endured for years…snowy, cold conditions that limit and puts a stop on their practice time outdoors.

It can’t feel great to players that have played outdoors year round their entire lives to get this far and have to find a gym, retreat to the batting cages or warmer place to get ready for the season. It probably feels a bit depressing…yet teams from the North have to deal with this every year.

After years of playing from late April to August in high school and summer leagues, college players from the North must find a way to adequately practice in late January and February to get ready for a season that starts February 16th. It’s not easy and one of these days, the NCAA will figure out a way for it to work.

My suggestion is to let the North Teams play in an Early fall, 20 game season. South teams can opt to participate, but aren’t required to play all 20. The South schools that would probably play in the fall are those schools on a quarter system that would benefit due to having the spring season fall in the middle of 3rd quarter finals. The south schools would then schedule their spring season accordingly with some break time for Quarter finals and the North Teams can pick it up in the spring in late March and play the remainder of their 36 games.

The only North/South uniform date would be the regular season stop date. There are obviously some bugs to work out, but I believe allowing a North team to play home in warm weather during the two seasons will make them better and may even force Boyds to revise his ISR and …..rankings.

Thoughts?

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