Yeah, I’m a month late on this one, but before the Wolfpack’s football team finishes up their season on Saturday, let’s take a quick look at the Pack9 schedule that was released recently (well… you know… recently in some aspect of the word).
One of the big takeaways here is that the Wolfpack will have a minimal travel schedule for this season. There are only three true road series where the team will be staying away from Raleigh since series at Duke and UNC will be simple bus rides across the Triangle each gameday. Those three road series are against Cal (April 17-19), Miami (May 2-4), and Stanford (May 15-17).
The only other time State will need to utilize hotel rooms this regular season is for the Jax Classic in Jacksonville, Florida, (February 21-23) for neutral site affairs against Ohio State, Alabama, and Coastal Carolina.
Yes, if you’re putting that together, that’s almost two full months of the season where the Wolfpack will rest their heads in their own beds on a nightly basis. That’s pretty nice.
The non-necessity for hotel rooms also extends into the known portion of the postseason, with the ACC Baseball Championship being played at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
The real question is how the inexperience playing away from home will impact the Pack if/when they play an NCAA series away from Raleigh. Of course, ideally, the Pack9 puts together an excellent campaign and doesn’t play away from Doak Field at Dail Park after that trip to Stanford until they hit the turf in Omaha for a return trip to the College World Series in mid-June. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
In the age of the transfer portal, looking at the schedule in terms of last year’s RPI ranks is a bit of an exercise in futility, but let’s take a look anyways:
- Fordham (198)
- Liberty (123)
- Ohio State (67)
- Alabama (28)
- Coastal Carolina (34)
- Richmond (216)
- Canisius (254)
- UNCG (65)
- Campbell (85)
- Wright State (141)
- NC A&T (166)
- Virginia Tech (68)
- Davidson (229)
- Pittsburgh (88)
- USC Upstate (95)
- Duke (20)
- Virginia (9)
- East Carolina (24)
- Louisville (61)
- California (64)
- Clemson (8)
- UNCW (38)
- Miami (81)
- North Carolina (4)
- Stanford (157)
We’ll probably complain heavily – and rightfully so – about the Fordham and Canisius series since neither team was any good last year and neither have added anything significant from the transfer portal. Wright State has been to an NCAA Regional in three of the last four years and the program is led by former Pack9 pitcher Alex Sogard, so that’s a nice series to schedule there.
Also notably gone from the schedule is the late season cupcake series in May that usually kills the RPI, even with a win. This is a good move.
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