⚾ 2025 Baseball Offseason

…lol

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Don’t let @brogdonfanpage see this

Angry Hold Me Back GIF by Leroy Patterson

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I don’t know why you guys keep bagging on field hockey. I don’t watch or follow the program, but they’re clearly successful. They make the NCAAs pretty much every season, made the Final Four in 09, 10, 16, 19 and 23 with a championship game appearance in 16 (and a few FFs before this period too).

That’s pretty comparable to baseball under O’Connor with 7 CWS, 2 finals and 1 championship.

I mean, if we were cutting teams from lack of success, I’d take a hard look at wrestling, volleyball, softball, track.

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The weirdest thing about the “Carla can’t keep the coaches around” argument is that one of the coaches people mention as evidence is Bronco Mendenhall.

Just a reminder that Bronco “randomly” walked away after amassing an incredible record of 36-38 at UVa, took two seasons off, coached New Mexico to a 5-7 record, and then bolted for Utah State as soon as he could.

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We have natties in four of the five you mentioned. Those will not be cut.

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Lax may not have the sheer number of fans of some other programs at UVa but it has some deep, deep pockets in the fan base.

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I actually think field hockey would be a good sport to cut. Never going to beat UNC. What does their average game attendance look like?

On the flip side how many scholarships does UVA use there and does cutting them even make a dent?

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I mean, he inherited a program that went 27-46 with one bowl appearance (and one winning season) in six years, and took that program to an Orange Bowl and qualified for bowls in all but his first season.

Yeah, mediocre, but our football history (last 75 years) outside Welsh, Groh, and Mendenhall is really, really bad.

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This. We will literally never be a great volleyball team. I mean why would we? And we’ve got no meaningful history in wrestling or track, at least that I’m aware of.

Softball I’m torn on. I feel like we should be better than we’ve been and there shouldn’t be anything stopping us from being competitive if we put resources into it, which we have somewhat.

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Don’t have a personal objection to any of those.

You probably need rowing to offset football for Title IX purposes, but maybe not depending on how Trump and McMahon decide to enforce it or not enforce it.

Lacrosse probably has some loud supporters and the players are generally from well off backgrounds and many go into finance, so they may have independent backing, I’m not sure.

I’d probably throw in track and volleyball. Might need to cut another men’s sport if Title IX still matters.

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Cutting both lacrosse programs is the ultimate answer to tell me you don’t understand the University of Virginia athletics program without telling me you don’t understand the University of Virginia athletics program.

Although, from a pure comedy standpoint, cutting lacrosse right after being named the host of the 2026 NCAA Lacrosse Final Four might be the funniest idea ever.

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I imagine we need all of rowing, field hockey, and volleyball to offset football for Title IX purposes. 100 football scholarships is a LOT that has to have an equivalent provision for women’s sports.

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The problem is a lot of these takes are looking at it as if it is 2018, where there is no NIL and no super SEC and Big 10. Things have changed. You can’t look at UVA the same way anymore. We don’t have anywhere near the resources that they have and we won’t until we get into those leagues. UVA is in a dumpster league making very average money in a time when only money matters. You have to look at the athletics program through that lens, whether you want to or not.

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No clue about attendance or donor support, but it’s going from 12 scholarships to roster cap of 27. So up to 15 more at a cost of 75k each is an additional 1.125 million, from 900k to possibly 2.025 mil.

If you’re interested in our athletic finances, start here. University of Virginia Intercollegiate Athletics Programs for the year ended June 30, 2024 | Auditor of Public Accounts

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Rowing went from 20 to 68 which more than offsets football going from 85 to 105.

Hmm, I should do a quick spreadsheet to see what our increase in scholarship costs alone are going to be.

Won’t link the article but I don’t think there’s any need to worry guys because Chris Graham says he’s staying.

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Wait, what? 68 rowing scholarships?

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Ok, (leaving out squash since it’s self funded and not an NCAA sport) so our total number of scholarships is currently 327.7 and we can increase up to 701. With ships costing 75k per, we’re spending 24 mil right now, but to fully fund all programs, it’ll cost 52 mil. So that’s potentially 28 mil more for scholarships plus 20 mil for revenue share.

The biggest increases are from baseball, football, both lacrosse teams (but more the men), rowing, men’s swim and both track teams.

We had 178.7 scholarships for men and 149 for women before to 371/330 roster limits.

Do you guys have any idea how to increase revenue by at least 48 million per year? Cause I sure don’t.

For comparison purposes, a Mississippi State scholarship costs about 43k. They currently give out 222.3 scholarships worth 9.6 mil. Roster limits would make that up to 385 scholarships worth 16.6 mil meaning an increase of 7 mil. Even with the new roster limits, fully funded, they’ll spend about 8 mil less than we do now!

So 7 mil plus 20 for rev share is 27 mil, which is just about the difference in media revenue per school between the SEC and the ACC.

Ain’t that amazing that SEC schools can fully fund everything without doing any more fundraising at all while we’re out here looking for 48 mil a year?

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What I don’t understand is why the academic side charges the athletic side the full cost of tuition. Charge the in state rate or even waive it altogether. An out of state athlete doesn’t cost the school any more to educate than an in state athlete. In fact, I doubt the school spends any more on educational resources for the 328 athletes than if they weren’t there. You could probably argue that the athletes aren’t taking the spot of a paying student at all. Would the school admit more regular students if there were no athletes?

Anyway, charging VAF the in state rate for the 701 scholarships at full funding would be about 27 mil, so just a few mil more than the 24 mil they spend now on 328 ships. This is something the school should lobby the state legislature and governor to allow them to do. 0 financial difference to the school since it’s paying itself here. I’m pretty sure Maryland does it this way.

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I think House says swimming & diving is capped at 30 for women and 25 for men.

We eliminated diving and DeSorbo says he’s looking at 29 and 24, for now, so that saves a few!

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