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1) The 2021-22 college sports season is officially over after Ole Miss beat Oklahoma to win the national title in baseball. The Rebels finished off one of the more improbably championship runs in recent memory. At one point, they were 7-14 in the SEC. They finished under .500 in the league. They were one of the last teams in the field. A month ago, most believed Mike Bianco was getting fired. And then they proved the old adage true: "All you need is an opportunity." College basketball: North Carolina is an 8 seed and makes the national title game. College baseball: Ole Miss barely gets in and wins the whole thing. I know football is different and there are fewer upsets. But I just can't see the argument against giving more teams an opportunity.
2) The Ole Miss win should both scare Mizzou fans and give you hope. Like I said, the Rebels finished under .500 in the SEC. They were the nine seed in the conference tournament. And they won the whole thing. As good as the SEC's reputation is in football and in gymnastics and in a few other sports, it's tough to argue against baseball being its best sport overall. Ole Miss became the fourth different SEC team to win the national title since Missouri joined the league and the sixth different team to win it since 2009. Those six teams have combined for eight titles because Vandy and South Carolina both did it twice. Throw in Arkansas losing to Oregon State in 2018 and exactly half the league has reached the championship series at least once in the last 11 years. Ten of the conference's 14 programs have made at least one CWS appearance in that time (Mizzou, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama have not). Throw in Oklahoma and Texas and three-quarters of the league has made at least one CWS in the last decade. So that's all pretty daunting.
At the same time, what it proves is if you are good enough to make the SEC Tournament you are good enough to make the College World Series. Missouri missed the SEC Tournament by a game and a half. Am I saying Mizzou was two wins away from the College World Series? Of course not. But all you need is a chance. You don't have to win the SEC. You just have to be good enough to get a ticket to the dance. Missouri may never be good enough to win the SEC, but there's no reason it can't be good enough to make the NCAA Tournament on a somewhat regular basis.
3) Speaking of tortured fanbases--and Missouri's is certainly that--I'm happy for Ole Miss fans. They've been through some things. The Rebels haven't won an SEC football title since 1963. They have won three SEC basketball regular season championships--all between 1996 and 2001--and two conference basketball tournaments. They've made six College World Series, though this year was just their second in the last 50 seasons and this was their first national title. It's not fanbase accustomed to winning things. If there's a fanbase that Mizzou fans can identify with in this league, it might be Ole Miss.
My friend Neal McCready wrote about the emotions of Ole Miss fans yesterday. There's a lot of good stuff in here, but this is what stuck with me:
"Your fandom is about to change.
Trust me on this. It'll never be exactly the same again.
I never believed that before that night in November 2016, when the ball settled into Rizzo's glove and the celebration began.
I have loved the Cubs all my life, frankly to the point that I simply didn't have the emotional capacity to really care about any other team. Yeah, I watched other games, and I started cheering for the Thunder when my brother and his family lived in Oklahoma City, but that fandom was just a distraction during a Cubs rebuild.
There was something romantic, I've since learned, about being a tortured loser. There was something weirdly intoxicating about being a game away from the World Series in 1984 and again in 2003. There was something oddly normal about being so good in 2008 and 2009 only to come up empty in the postseason.
The 2015 season was amazing, but it ended short of the World Series, leaving me with that familiar sense of dread. "Will I ever see them win it all?" I'd think, deep down doubting it.
Then it happened. The Cubs have been disappointing since that night. They ran out of gas in 2017, choked in 2018 and 2019, lost listlessly in the playoffs in 2020 and then tore it all down in 2021. As of this writing, the Cubs are 18 games under .500, much closer to last place than they are first.
And you know what? I don't really care. I haven't cared the same since they won the World Series. It's been a calmer, more enjoyable fandom. There's no dread. There's no angst. If they never win it again, I'd be disappointed, but I'll always have 2016."
He's 100% right. I've gone through it myself with the Royals and, to a lesser extent, the Chiefs. I've had this discussion with friends. Some of them are angry about how bad the Royals are. I've told them, "They gave me everything I needed in 2014 and 2015. I'd like them to win again, but if they don't, I got what I needed." The Chiefs playoff losses to Tampa and Cincinnati the last two years sucked, but they didn't suck like all the ones that came before they won a Super Bowl. They were much easier to flush for me. I'm not saying everyone's like that. But once your team wins, there's an element of pressure and angst that goes away. I've often thought about Mizzou fans "What happens if they ever win?" A big part of the identity is the fanbase that hasn't won anything truly meaningful in many of your lives. You've gotten close. You've had a chance. But Mizzou hasn't won a conference title in basketball in 28 years and has never been to a Final Four. The last football conference title was 53 years ago and there has never been a national championship. Titles are always meaningful. But for fanbases like Mizzou and Ole Miss, it's another level. Truly, I hope you all get to experience a Mizzou championship. Ideally, it's in football or basketball. But even in softball or volleyball or SOMETHING (no disrespect disc golfers). You all deserve it.
4) So how does Missouri get to the point it can win titles? That takes players. The football team took its shot with some of the players it hopes can lead to that this weekend. There were nine official visitors on campus. The lone public commitment so far is from Cahokia DB/ATH Nicholas DeLoach. We expect there to be more in the relatively near future. You can see some of the reactions to the weekend here. We'll continue to try to get in touch with the rest of the players who were in town who we haven't talked to yet.
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