Clemson Baseball Head Coach Erik Bakich Calling For NCAA Schedule Change

Over a week ago, Clemson football head coach Dabo Swinney made a call to action regarding tampering. Now, another coach with a different athletic program is pushing for reform.

Clemson baseball’s head coach, Erik Bakich, backed up his claim with evidence as well, regarding how the college baseball schedule is structured. He says that the college baseball season starting in February shouldn’t be happening, and there are plenty of reasons why.

He used the perfect time to express his frustration, taking a video while snow came down in Clemson on Saturday afternoon.

“Annual reminder that starting the college baseball on Valentine’s Day is freaking stupid,” Bakich began the post with. “Get the season out of February.”

Bakich brings up an underlying theme with why the schedule begins on Valentine’s Day: money. The Clemson head coach brings up that many warmer schools are hosting most of their home games in February and March—and that includes the teams that host Regionals or Super Regionals.

According to his data, which is on a 20-slide carousel post beginning with his video, of the 40 teams that have hosted either a Regional or a Super Regional in the last five years, over half of their home games were played in the first two months of the season.

However, the attendance numbers are significantly lower in February and March, leading to Bakich’s solution of moving the schedule back to begin in the first week of March. Bakich calls this current time of the year “basketball season” as well, meaning delaying the calendar would see more instant coverage to begin the season.

When the weather starts getting warmer, and things like March Madness start slowing down, that’s when Bakich believes the schedule should start. Then, you can begin hitting on things like alcohol sales, merchandise and other in-stadium sales that can boost the revenue of the program.

“The numbers are undeniable,” he said. “Almost 90% of warm weather schools have better actual attendance in April and May then they do in February and March.”

Of that includes travel, especially from the northern schools. For example, Clemson’s first series is at home against Army on Feb. 13-15. The Black Knights won’t play at home until March 3, being on the road for three weeks.

From a financial standpoint, Bakich understands the amount that it costs many of these northern schools to come play for several weeks at a time at a warmer ballpark to begin their respective season. His data detects about a $143,000 difference between the teams that have to travel to begin the season compared to the southern schools that don’t.

Bakich also brings up what happens from a player standpoint. College baseball preparations begin five weeks before the season starts. In the MLB, there is about a week or two more to prepare. That trickles into injury issues for collegiate baseball players.

With a new schedule pushed back, that would mean about nine weeks. Nearly half of that time would be reduced activity to get back into the swing of things. That would be beneficial from an injury standpoint to begin the year.

Bakich also touches on academic success within this schedule change. If moved back to March, it would save several in-class days that these northern schools are missing out on. The Clemson head coach also adds that most teams return late on Sundays, “compromising sleep and jeopardizing academic success.”

He doesn’t want to shorten the entire season though, he wants to add an additional week on the backend of the schedule, having another week of playoffs to add excitement to the end of the year.

“We’re the only major sport whose season doesn’t mirror the pro season,” Bakich said. “...one thing that we can take from professional baseball is expanded playoffs.”

Bakich’s formula does make sense. Move the schedule back, northern schools can save money and attendance would be more stable due to games happening later on in the calendar year.

From a collegiate athlete standpoint, more time to begin and less worry about travel early on, especially from the northern schools, would benefit both physical injuries and time in the classroom. It would also allow the MLB schedule to be a little closer in time to college baseball’s.

The social media activism from Bakich looks to bring more coaches to step up and act against the current schedule that the NCAA has. With such a changing world of college athletics, don’t be shocked if it happens sooner than most think.