Looking for anyone that might be very familiar with Conference USA teams and how they stack up against one another. Not just the win/loss records, but the programs themselves. Are certain schools simply wonderful? Should some be avoided? Do they generally have good travel cities/ballparks? Any insight would be appreciated.
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Don't really know the program, except by reputation, which is really good, but I am really impressed by Rice. Great school (love the residential colleges concept), beautiful campus, and one of the nicest ballparks I've seen. One of the many cool things about Rice is that it's got the benefits of a medium size, highly selective, highly academic school, while also having big time athletics. If I was a kid with the necessary baseball and academic qualifications I'd compare it favorably to schools like USC, Vandy, and U VA.
Saw where 5 of the teams were included in the Top 100 (Rice, Florida Atlantic, Southern Miss, Florida Int, Old Dominion). Not included are UT - San Antonio, UAB, Middle TN, Marshall, Charlotte, Western KY and La Tech). As for RPI rankings, UAB is listed at 70th with Middle TN at 83rd. Confrence RPI is ranked 8th.
Looks like the schools are kind of spread out ranging from the Virginia's, down to Miami and over to San Antonio. Looks like a nice group of cities if you can make the travel work.
One of my buddies I coach with has a son who was a freshman last year at FIU and he really liked it.
Since joining C-USA in 2006 Rice finished first every year except one...
Bolts recently posted the Top 100 listing (referenced above) which includes five Conference USA teams (Rice #20, Florida Atlantic #53, Southern Miss #88, Florida Int #97, Old Dominion #99).
In particular, anyone have any insight into the UAB and Middle TN programs which both have pretty good RPI's from 2015 season? Middle TN (32-27) played both Vanderbilt and Tennessee with UAB (33-25) playing Auburn, Alabama, Ole Miss and Troy.
