I’m going to call BS on one key thing with the Brian O’Connor-to-Mississippi State story, that being, the 34-scholarship thing.
Nobody in college baseball needs 34 scholarships.
How you can tell: looking at the PDFs of any team’s stats for this year, last year, the last five years.
Do that, and you notice a pattern: the guys who get more than 25 ABs and more than 10 innings on the mound add up to between 24-28 – the 28 there being an outlier.
Mississippi State AD Zac Selmon might be promising O’Connor 34 scholarships, but O’Connor has to know that he doesn’t need them.
Because if he gives out 6-10 scholarships to guys who aren’t going to get 25 ABs or double-digit innings on the mound, what does he think – that he can use those scholarships to stockpile guys for development purposes?
Does he think he’s going to have 6-10 guys sitting in his dugout knowing they’re not going to get ABs or innings, aside from a random mid-week game here and there, and they’re going to be doing anything aside from looking for their next place to play?
Sure, having the extra schollies can get a few more guys in the clubhouse in the summer, create more competition in the fall for spots in the everyday lineup, for the utility spots, the edges of the bullpen.
It’s wasted money, though, if you still end up having 24-28 guys contributing, and the guys on the edges end up transferring out at the end of the year.
Everybody in college athletics, going forward, will have to figure out how to best allocate their resources to be able to field, starting at the top, football and men’s basketball, the two sports that make money.
Reality check there: baseball doesn’t make money.
Mississippi State loses $3 million a year at baseball like everybody else in Power 5 does.
Going from 11.7 to 34 scholarships is going to, what, add another million a year to the loss ledger there for Selmon?
How long is this Selmon guy going to be willing to eat $4 million a year in losses in baseball with his football program going 2-10, with spending that is dead-last in the SEC, at $35.6 million in 2024 – $80 million less than what Alabama spent on football in 2024?
Mississippi State Athletics, as a whole, lost $7 million last year.
The football team there sucks, and more important, to the bottom line, it barely makes money itself, which is hard to do in the SEC – barely make money at football.
My best guess is, our man Zac Selmon isn’t that far off from being the former AD at Mississippi State.
Another sub-.500 season this fall from the football team could do it.
Then we’ll see how long Brian O’Connor gets his 34 schollies.
That he doesn’t need, and wouldn’t use.
Chris Graham, the king of “fringe media,” a zero-time Virginia Sportswriter of the Year, and a member of zero Halls of Fame, is the founder and editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1994 alum of the University of Virginia, Chris is the author and co-author of seven books, including Poverty of Imagination, a memoir published in 2019. For his commentaries on news, sports and politics, go to his YouTube page, or subscribe to his Street Knowledge podcast. Email Chris at [email protected].
When ICE and other agencies began arresting, detaining, and deporting immigrants this past January under orders from Donald Trump, unions stepped up to support immigrant workers.
Six additional Big Lots stores are set to welcome customers on June 5 in Virginia, part of the fourth and final wave of reopenings.
Augusta Free Press LLC | Privacy Policy
