Blame the talking heads for using lazy terms in all sports.
Our part time play by play guy was still using a basketball metaphor (Cinderella) to describe C.C. this morning. The Gonazga comparisons drive me nuts.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...jors/86587410/"Me personally, I don't think we've been a mid-major baseball program for a while," Gilmore said. "I surely don't tell that to my kids. I tell them I think we're a top four or five ACC-caliber club, that we can play with the SEC at times, that we don't shy away from anyone.
"We're a mid-major because we're a 10,000-population school and we had (FBC) football, and you kind of get stigmatized by that."
I think people just have the wrong perception when they use the term mid major. To me, mid major, means a middle tier program, which is a team that is 100-200 or so in the rankings. Grambling would be low major, Florida is high major, and so on and so forth. Does Grambling have the same shot at a National Title as Florida, technically yes, but they ain't sniffing a national title ever. I love the statement that DFM used when referring to mid majors as a reference to their facilities because that is pretty accurate.
Looks like you misunderstood him. No coach who wins a major college national title is stupid enough to label themselves as a "mid-major." Thank you Sportdawg.
"Me personally, I don't think we've been a mid-major baseball program for a while," Gilmore said. "I surely don't tell that to my kids. I tell them I think we're a top four or five ACC-caliber club, that we can play with the SEC at times, that we don't shy away from anyone.
"We're a mid-major because we're a 10,000-population school and we had (FBC) football, and you kind of get stigmatized by that."
Just another arbitrary definition for "mid-major" to add to the thousands of other arbitrary definitions of that stupid term. Thanks for sharing. And according to your definition, I'd conclude you consider Tech a "high-major" since I assume we are Top 100 by whatever standard in the core sports. That's nice.
Re: Culture. The main reason the culture is the way it is college vs. professional is because we don't have many major pro teams in the South. And the pro teams we do have in the South are relative newcomers. Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Arkansas have no major pro teams in the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, or MLS. Therefore, the SEC teams in those states serve as the de facto pro teams. Up north and out west pro sports are king because that's where the vast majority of pro sports franchises originated and are still located.
If I lived in the New Orleans, DFW area, or Houston I would never invest in professional sports because my "culture" does not allow it. I like college sports. I have not watched a complete professional game of any kind in years. Some baseball, but not a huge fan.
Again, the NCAA and Professional leagues go after different markets. Not that much cross over.
Most terms used to describe a team or a conference in football don't fit in with the discussion of NCAA Baseball. The only descriptions that come into play in baseball are southern or western. The last time a team outside these two "warm" regions won a College World Series was when dinosaurs roamed the country.