Omaha on the Horizon

I have reason to believe the confirmed rumor is not 100% accurate.

Same. I've never wondered about it for one second and I was 100% all in on Mitch Canham from the beginning

For the last couple of seasons, 56chevy as well as a couple other posters have been right with info like this. Very interesting.

I was all in on Canham before the candidates were ever leaked, and I've been thinking of making an 'I told you' post expressing my excitement at the program's future, but figured it was too soon. But what the hell...

Trying to 'maintain' success is much harder than 'building' success. There's an element of looking behind you, trying to live up to the past. Pat Bailey faced it, and Nate Yeskie would have as well. It's an easy answer on paper to continue with as few changes as possible and assume the good times will keep rolling. Many here advocated for exactly that. But I have no doubt we would have all been frustrated with the result for a long time. 30 years later, and we're STILL frustrated with the result of that strategy in basketball when our last all-time great retired.

Replacing Pat Casey is impossible. He's a once-in-a-century rarity. We have no f'ing business being as good of a baseball program as we are. But he willed it to happen, over decades of toil, and it sapped so much of his energy he had to retire 20 years before most other coaches would. He just poured that much of himself into this program. To think that we can repeat what he's done, make it to Omaha and win a NC, just by pointing to the next guy on staff and saying 'ok, your turn', is folly.

Casey was all about the intangibles. His unmatched desire to win, his infinite hatred of losing, his constant demand of excellence. He didn't need to add more people with these attributes on his staff, what he needed was good baseball teachers, and that's what we've had. Having a great teacher as a head coach is fine you want to be 'good' or 'competitive', but you need to have a great leader heading a program if your goal is to be the best in the country.

Whoever replaced Casey was going to inevitably struggle in the short term. Recruiting would undoubtedly take a hit. The big question is how effectively and how soon could our new coach build up the program again to match his vision, and how good would that vision be? I think having a coach like Yeskie take over would have resulted in a more gradual decline, but also resulted in a much lower ceiling.

With Canham, the dropoff was pretty sudden (I think Covid was actually helpful for the program long-term; that cancelled season probably would have been an abortion anyway). What is surprising to me is how quickly Canham has recovered and built this squad into his own team. I figured we'll need about 5 years to make a super regional again, and we were one game away from that in year 2. The jury is obviously still out on this squad and the level of success they'll have, but what excites me is that this is so clearly Canham's team, that they are laser-focused on building something for themselves, with nary a concern about what came before them, or living up to some past standard (you got that sense last year as well). Our recruiting is nationally-ranked again, and already paying dividends with this stacked lineup we're currently enjoying.

We may yet stumble this year as we head into conference play and beyond. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we do. That happens when you're building something. But knowing how Canham and Barney took that 2007 team on their shoulders and willed them to a NC that they had no business deserving on paper, I have a ton of confidence that Canham will leverage every failure or dropoff to reach higher levels of success in subsequent endeavors.

Obviously, I'm super stoked about the state of this team and this program. Logic tells me that another NC for ol' OSU probably isn't in the cards without Casey leading the way, but a part of me is starting to believe (yet again) that anything is possible...

He’s had at least one doctor recommend TJ. Last I was told, he was seeking a second opinion. Based on Kiley McDaniel’s tweet last night, I’m guessing the second opinion was TJ as well.

FYI... for "losers" who like stats. Select/basic info from NCAA site thru games of 4/27/22 for OSU (leader/Pac12 ranked ahead):

BA 19th (.307) / UNLV .341 ucks .309
OBA 13th (.419) / UNLV .431

ERA 18th (3.83) / Tenn 2.00 UCLA 3.35, Furd 3.82
WHIP 6th (1.19) / Tenn 0.88 UCLA 1.17
FA 1st (.988) ucks .980

Tennessee appears to be the real deal... #1 in ERA/WHIP... 18th BA (.308)... #3 FA (.984)... #6 OBA (.427)

Boyd's 19/24 in SBA/SB ranks tied for 40th... Oyama/UCLA is 18/19 in two less games
Cooper's 2.08 ERA 26th
Melton's .371 BA 101st
Donkey's .503 OBA 50th
Melton's 48 RBI 24th
Melton's .709 SLG 36th
Cooper's 0.86 WHIP 10th