Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> Looking to February

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Cold weather has hit the Southeast this week, at least as much as it ever does, Daylight Savings Time has ended, and the long darkness has begun. We all need to grasp those things that get us through until the sun comes out again, and, for me, baseball's a big part of that. I want to take this week's column and look ahead at some of the big non-conference games for next year.

The nature of the beast is that most of the really interesting regular season inter-regional and non-conference games take place early in the year. It turns out, as I looked at last week, that those early-season games are probably pretty good indicators of team quality, so let's see what's on tap for February.

Selected games:

2/03 - 2/04  Miami at Florida
2/09 - 2/10  Florida at Miami
2/09 - 2/11  Oklahoma at Alabama
2/16 - 2/18  Long Beach State at Arkansas
2/16         Auburn vs. North Carolina
2/16 - 2/18  Houston at LSU
2/16         New Orleans at Mississippi State
2/17 - 2/18  Florida at Florida State
2/17 - 2/18  Notre Dame at Mississippi State
2/21         Georgia Tech at Georgia
2/23 - 2/25  Mississippi State at Southern California
2/24 - 2/25  Florida State at Florida

Most of the big boys get at least one good weekend in here. LSU's early season is actually a bit easier than usual, perhaps a reaction to their early season struggles of the last couple of years. Florida goes through their usual pre-season in-state wringer. South Carolina is notably missing here; their schedule make take a year or two to catch up to their new level of success, if it continues. Only Mississippi State goes west this year, as the others catch up on return engagements.

The weekend of February 16 through February 18 looks especially strong, with four really good teams on the non-conference agenda, as well as the other two teams in the tournament with Auburn and UNC, South Alabama and Minnesota, and mid-level opponents in UNO and Notre Dame.

The ACC teams are being a little slower in releasing their schedules, but here are the highlights I've gleaned so far:

2/09 - 2/11  Florida State at Stanford
2/10         Georgia Tech at Rice
2/11         Nebraska vs Georgia Tech
2/16         Auburn vs. North Carolina
2/17 - 2/18  Florida at Florida State
2/21         Georgia Tech at Georgia
2/24 - 2/25  Florida State at Florida

This one starts off with a bang, as FSU heads to Stanford to see who looks like an early contender to return to Omaha. FSU also gets in the two series against Florida (and the usual mayhem with Miami later in the year), and Georgia Tech has some quality matchups here, but the rest of the league appears to be saving the big games for later in the year, in the case of UNC, or avoiding them altogether, in the case of Clemson.

2/02 - 2/04  Stanford at Cal State Fullerton
2/09 - 2/11  Florida State at Stanford
2/09 - 2/11  Long Beach State vs Southern California
2/16 - 2/18  Stanford at Texas
2/23 - 2/25  Arizona State at Cal State Fullerton
2/23 - 2/25  Mississippi State at Southern California
2/23 - 2/25  Tulane at UCLA

On the one hand, there are some very strong pre-season schedules here, with Stanford and USC getting the most credit. On the other hand, and some of this is just a coincidence of timing in home-and-home series in alternate years, none of the top four Pac-10 teams travels east of the Mississippi in February (UCLA does go to UNC the first weekend in March.) Still, there's some good-looking stuff in here to get excited about.

2/02 - 2/04  Enron Field Classic
2/09         Nebraska at Rice
2/09 - 2/11  Cal State Fullerton at Baylor
2/09 - 2/11  Cal State Northridge at Texas Tech
2/09 - 2/11  Oklahoma at Alabama
2/11         Nebraska vs Georgia Tech
2/11         Oklahoma State at Miami
2/16 - 2/18  Stanford at Texas
2/24         Nebraska at Louisiana-Lafayette
2/25         Nebraska vs Wichita State
2/27         Texas A&M at Houston

Geography helps them out a bit by putting the best parts of C-USA and the WAC nearby, but there's a lot of good matchups here to give credit for.

The Enron Field Classic looks like an awful lot of early fun. The field includes Rice, TCU, Houston, Texas, Texas Tech and Baylor. Apparently, the teams have assurances that they will not face other teams in their current conference that weekend, but that still leaves some good matchups, as presumably the three Big-12 teams will rotate through the other three.

I'm not going to repeat games from the other sections here (Cal State Fullerton is once again playing a tremendous early season schedule, for example), but here are a few other interesting February matchups:

2/09 - 2/11  Houston at San Diego State
2/13         Tulane at Louisiana-Lafayette
2/13         Rice at Houston
2/21         Houston at Rice
2/23         Wichita State at Louisiana-Lafayette

So, there it is, and only two-and-a-half months away. I think I can hold on that long.

Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> Looking to February

About the author, Boyd Nation