Expectations for the Nebraska Baseball Program

ColoradoHusk

ColoradoHusk

Donor
I was thinking of posting a thread like this after this weekend, and I think it's even more relevant after Erstad's resignation.  As a NU fan, what are your expectations for the Nebraska baseball program?  Here are mine.

1)  Be in the top half of the Big Ten nearly every year, and be competitive for the Big Ten regular season and tournament championship.  Note, I am not saying "win that championship every year".

2)  Reach the NCAA Tournament on a regular basis (every year is not a requirement) and be competitive in the tournaments.

By my expectations, Erstad was doing a good job.  He was regularly performing my #1 expectation.  He had struggled in #2 until this year.  Some may think that going 1-2 is not being competitive, but the team was 1 out away from being in the regional championship.  In my eyes, that's being competitive.

 
In terms of a 5 year window: 

- Finish in the Top 3 of the conference 4 out of 5 years. 

- Make Regionals 4 out of 5 years.

- Top 2 seed in regionals 3 out of 5 years. 

- Make a Super Regional 1 out of 5 years. 

- No stupidly asinine losses. 

 
ColoradoHusk said:
I was thinking of posting a thread like this after this weekend, and I think it's even more relevant after Erstad's resignation.  As a NU fan, what are your expectations for the Nebraska baseball program?  Here are mine.

1)  Be in the top half of the Big Ten nearly every year, and be competitive for the Big Ten regular season and tournament championship.  Note, I am not saying "win that championship every year".

2)  Reach the NCAA Tournament on a regular basis (every year is not a requirement) and be competitive in the tournaments.

By my expectations, Erstad was doing a good job.  He was regularly performing my #1 expectation.  He had struggled in #2 until this year.  Some may think that going 1-2 is not being competitive, but the team was 1 out away from being in the regional championship.  In my eyes, that's being competitive.
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I’m in line with this. With the weather disadvantages, we will never be on the level of the SEC and ACC.

Being a consistent top 3 team in the Big Ten most years and a super regional 1 in 5 years is a reasonable expectation.

 
Cdog923 said:
In terms of a 5 year window: 

- Finish in the Top 3 of the conference 4 out of 5 years. 

- Make Regionals 4 out of 5 years.

- Top 2 seed in regionals 3 out of 5 years. 

- Make a Super Regional 1 out of 5 years. 

- No stupidly asinine losses. 
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I take it you are referring to Saturday night's loss.  NU's loss wasn't even the worst loss of the regionals in terms of blowing a late lead.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/texas-a-ms-bryce-blaum-crushes-walk-off-grand-slam-vs-west-virginia-in-ncaa-college-baseball-tournament/

 
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When I look at expectations, competing toward the top of the league, both regular season and tournament, should be a given. This league is fairly weak. Missing the tourney is really not good at all.

To win a Regional, it's close to a necessity to host. A few of those sprinkled in over eight years ... 2 or 3 ...is not too much to ask for.

Winning a super is hard but we would all like to get to the CWS and win a game or two. We believed in that under Dave. It's almost a complete fantasy at this point. 

Given Erstad returning, I would not believe in our chances to improve over this year. Not saying we couldn't, but past results say no. 

I believed Erstad was the man for this job based on his baseball knowledge and his having been coached by Mike Scioscia.

That's diminished after year eight. 

 
Cdog923 said:
In terms of a 5 year window: 

- Finish in the Top 3 of the conference 4 out of 5 years. 

- Make Regionals 4 out of 5 years.

- Top 2 seed in regionals 3 out of 5 years. 

- Make a Super Regional 1 out of 5 years. 

- No stupidly asinine losses. 
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The only thing I can really push back on is your last one.  Baseball is weird and every team seems to drop a few games they didn't expect.  Heck Vandy lost to Austin Peay this year.

 
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tmfr15 said:
When I look at expectations, competing toward the top of the league, both regular season and tournament, should be a given. This league is fairly weak. Missing the tourney is really not good at all.

To win a Regional, it's close to a necessity to host. A few of those sprinkled in over eight years ... 2 or 3 ...is not too much to ask for.

Winning a super is hard but we would all like to get to the CWS and win a game or two. We believed in that under Dave. It's almost a complete fantasy at this point. 

Given Erstad returning, I would not believe in our chances to improve over this year. Not saying we couldn't, but past results say no. 

I believed Erstad was the man for this job based on his baseball knowledge and his having been coached by Mike Scioscia.

That's diminished after year eight. 
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I think we would all like to get to the CWS. I don’t know if it’s realistic for that to expect to happen, even if it’s been done in the past.  The stretch from 1999-2004 was an outlier in NU baseball history, and I don’t think it should be used as expectations of the program. I’m not saying you are doing that, but it’s dangerous to use peak years in program history as the standards for the program. 

 
Cdog923 said:
Actually, no. I'm thinking more like a 10-2 loss to Northwestern, or 5-0 to Kansas State.  
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8-7 to a godawful Penn State team in 2017?  3-2 to a pretty bad Rutgers team in 2016?  Losing every series to Iowa after 2012?  Scoring 1 run against Western Carolina in the 2016 regional (a team that gave up 30+ runs total in their other two games at said regional)?  Before somebody suggests it: NO, no team has ever gone undefeated.  But I wouldn't even put Oklahoma State Saturday night near the list of weirdest losses the last 8 years.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
1)  Be in the top half of the Big Ten nearly every year, and be competitive for the Big Ten regular season and tournament championship.  Note, I am not saying "win that championship every year".

2)  Reach the NCAA Tournament on a regular basis (every year is not a requirement) and be competitive in the tournaments.
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If I had expectations for the baseball team, this would be pretty close. Really the only reason I have any expectations at all is because I see no logical reason we shouldn't regularly be one of the top 3 or 4 teams in the B1G conference. And if we do what we should be able to do in conference then regular regional appearances should follow. But, like basketball, currently I don't really have any expectations of our teams other than football and volleyball. Hopefully Fred and whoever the new baseball coach is can get us thinking bigger. But I'd still trade about any success in these two sports for just one more win for the football team.

 
Your initial baselines are extremely sensible, CH. I don't think anyone would settle for anything less than that unless they just don't care about NU baseball at all.

Would like to third the notion it's silly to expect no weird losses in baseball. They happen all the time. Some days even the best teams get in a funk they can't get out of. We're going to have some goofy losses to teams we should beat. My goal would always to strive for LESS of these. One or two a season would be ideal.

I would challenge your response to tfmr. The Van Horn years were the golden years for NU baseball. He showed that the right coach with the right players can achieve very high levels of success here. I don't know why we shouldn't strive for that again. My expectations aren't really numbers based but rather just to win again. I want to win a Big 10 tourney for once. I would like to win a regional, and a super regional, and a CWS game. Hosting a regional in Lincoln at Haymarket again would be amazing. Turning TD Ameritrade into a Sea of Red with NU in the CWS! I don't think this is easy by any stretch, given some of the disadvantages we face that have already been mentioned (namely, weather and recruiting). But I think it's what we should be striving to return to.

Heck, I just want NU baseball to be more than an afterthought for most people again. To get there we've got to experience a high degree of success on the diamond.

Oh, and an ancillary goal: A model coach who represents us well, as Estrad did. It still chaps my buns how much of a joke we became during the Pelini era strictly due to his conduct.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
The stretch from 1999-2004 was an outlier in NU baseball history, and I don’t think it should be used as expectations of the program. 
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Was it an outlier because it's not realistic for us to compete at that level, or was it an outlier because that was the one time we had an elite coach? 

As far as expectations I think being top 3 in conference and in regional play 80% of the time, and winning the conference and/or super regional 33% of the time are realistic goals.

 
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