re: Sobering Info About LSU's Baseball Program

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tigerbait2010

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Okay, well lots of teams are good enough to win it all year in and year out. I would assume you'd know that the recruiting rankings are typically the same teams every year.

The point is that you refuse to acknowledge LSU doesn't have some gigantic talent gap between itself and the rest of the top 10. You make it sound like all the top recruits are just beating down the door to play for LSU baseball, when the reality is that baseball is a different type of recruiting demographic compared to college football.


More often than not these families come from upper middle class to even very affluent families, and not every family values at a shot at a national title over a big scholarship at an excellent private institution. Hell, they can get both of those for the most part. It's a not a calculus problem to explain why Vanderbilt, Florida, UCLA, and TCU are killing it on the recruiting trail.

I'm at LSU and am proud I'll have a good degree with no debt, but LSU is a great value school. Our biggest competition in college baseball are big time private institutions, and I can't get myself to be mad at Maineri when he loses a stop recruit from a nice suburb to Vanderbilt

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No offense, but your age makes it difficult to discuss the subject with those who saw 11.7 and private institutions recruiting alongside LSU in the 90's when we tore their asses up. We were perennial Omaha damage doers in that we didn't just go there to say hello.

All of these breathless Mainieri supporters have-as I said-effectively reframed the argument so that people are irrational for not recognizing the greatness that Pauline and his regular and SECT Championships are.

There was a time when we wouldn't piss on the SECT if it were on fire. It had ZERO importance because the real goal was Omaha and winning there.

Pauline supporters talk about how the game has changed, but Skip was around for 8 team regionals. Those were much, MUCH more difficult to emerge out of and make it Omaha. Think about it this way. You had two 1 seeds and two 2 seeds in every regional played under the old format and Skip repeatedly won them and made it to Omaha.

While dealing with 11.7. While dealing with MLB. While dealing with the Stanford's and the Vandy's of the world. He adjusted and the final three years of his career also made it to the Sub Regionals and Super Regional Format.

He was a grand total of 2 wins away from back-to-back-to-back trips to Omaha in that format as well.

What Pauline supporters are doing-and what they have effectively done for some time now-is reframed the debate to focus fan attention on achievements that were not ever the goals of our team and program. Want proof?

We talk about dominant regular seasons and top 8 seeds and Regular Season success...and Skip did too. But only once.

Real LSU Baseball Fans will remember that year. The team's motto was, "Wire to Wire," and it was meant to mean that we would dominate for an entire year. From the first to the last, we would focus on regular season, SECT and Regionals and Omaha.

LSU flamed out, didn't reach Omaha, and Bertman publicly admitted that THERE WAS TOO MUCH PRESSURE on the team with that mindset and focus.

I find it humorous that so many fans have allowed Pauline supporters to reframe the argument though. We shouldn't expect championships. Not because Pauline can't win them though, they'll tell you. It's that nobody can anymore.

They'll tell you we should expect regular season, division and SECT titles. But not because that's all Pauline is consistent at or focuses on, they'll tell you. It's that those achievements are the only things we should expect our coach to be able to do.

Effectively reframing the debate around Pauline's limitations, and away from this program's perennial championship aspirations. Which is what built us into what we are today.