Josh Holliday to Baseball Programs Canceling Games: ‘What Are You Afraid Of?’

Entering the final week of the 2026 baseball season, Oklahoma State coach Josh Holliday had four games in five days on the schedule. He could have canceled one.

But, Holliday took his team back to Tulsa on Tuesday for their third matchup against Oral Roberts this season, an 11-6 win. But other coaches and programs across the country in his shoes were canceling their games.

It’s become a tradition late in the season the past few years — high-major baseball programs canceling mid-week games with low- and mid-major programs to protect their RPI for NCAA Tournament selection purposes. The NCAA sent out a memo earlier this week warning teams that if they do so it would be taken into consideration in the selection process.

Holliday wants not part of it and called out other programs that did it, in comments recorded by The Stillwegian’s Daniel Allen after Tuesday’s game.

Josh Holliday on RPI Cancellations

Amid the plethora of RPI-based midweek cancellations around college baseball, #OkState coach Josh Holliday called for the system to be patched.

“That pisses me off, and if we’re gonna let people (and teams) manipulate a system, then the system sucks, and it needs to be fixed.” pic.twitter.com/g8YGwt30h8
— Daniel Allen (@bydanielallen25) May 13, 2026

“I think the coaches that agreed to do that should look in the mirror and ask themselves what kind of example they're setting for their team,” Holliday said. “Had we taken that route we would have cheated our team this opportunity tonight. Kids had multiple home run games, guys came through, guys gained confidence and really, quite honestly, your word should mean something.”

There are rules around mid-week games, notably that teams can’t fly to them. They must drive, which makes the games great regional scheduling opportunities. OSU and ORU have played three times this year, in part because Tulsa isn’t far from Stillwater. But ORU coach Ryan Folmar is a former Cowboys player. Oral Roberts leads the Summit League but entered the game with an NCAA RPI of 165 to OSU’s 27.

He had other reasons to consider it. The Cowboys have three games against Arizona starting on Thursday. He and his team got back from Arizona on Sunday after playing a three-game series with Arizona State. His team could have used the break with the Big 12 Tournament approaching.

Holliday said he wanted to honor the contract and a great scheduling partner in OSU. He also said the NCAA has told coaches that playing 56 games is a number the entity wants teams to hit for NCAA Tournament consideration. After Tuesday, the Cowboys have 52 games, with three more against Arizona and at least one in the Big 12 Tournament next week.

He said it “pisses him off” that coaches are trying to manipulate the system.

“To walk away from that, to breach a contract I mean that's just not in the DNA that I was raised under ethically or quite honestly as a program,” he said. “What are you afraid of? So, yeah it pisses me off. There's a lot of inequity out there in college baseball right now and everyone just shuts up and does the best they can to mind their own business but i think that's manipulating the system that we're all part of.”

Add us as a preferred source on Google