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Do Land Mines Await the 2011 Horned Frogs?


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By Mark Knudson, The Mtn. Insider
February 11, 2011

It feels like a better time for snowballs than baseballs in and around Mountain West country right now.

And while the calendar waits for no one, baseball season is around the corner.

Most observers think the MWC will once again be TCU and the six dwarfs in 2011, and there’s good reason for that. The Horned Frogs are a preseason No. 1 nationally in two polls and a strong candidate to return to Omaha, where they performed brilliantly in the College World Series last June. All three starting pitchers that TCU will roll out on weekends have been tabbed as All-Americans before the season starts.

All these preseason accolades could be true, but they could also have some unplanned repercussions, such as causing the young men in purple to maybe get a little too full of themselves while firing up the rest of the teams in the league.

There’s no question that TCU comes into the season wearing a target on its back.

Could anyone unseat TCU as Conference top dog? While it doesn’t appear likely, there are plenty of land mines in this Conference for the Frogs to beware of.

The coaches and media (not including yours truly) think that BYU has the next best team in the league coming in. Head coach Vance Law has never seemed to have enough arms to compete on a national level, but that could be changing. Law is excited about some newcomers and has wily vet Blake Torgerson coming back for his redshirt senior season. Law also has catcher Alex Wolfe and what figures to be a potent lineup that should be able to provide plenty of run support.

San Diego State has been taking steps forward during the past couple seasons with Tony Gywnn at the helm. The Hall of Famer has an All-American outfielder of his own in Brandon Meredith, but that big stud pitcher that we’ve grown accustom to seeing on Friday nights in San Diego, Stephen Strasburg. Addison Gentry hasn’t stepped forward just yet, and the Aztecs need to produce more runs in the clutch because they don’t appear to have that “stopper” at the top of the rotation going into the season.

Can New Mexico make another run? Last season, the Lobos made the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1962 partly because of a powerful lineup and in no small part to some aggressive scheduling that really helped their RPI. Head coach Ray Birmingham has loaded up the schedule once again, with one national publication ranking the Lobos with the nation’s second hardest slate. But almost all of those games are on the road, where the Lobos were just 12-12 last season, and most of the stalwarts in last year’s batting order have moved on.

Fear not, New Mexico fans. This is a head coach whose teams have averaged more than 10 runs per game for 18 straight years! Birmingham will find a way to field one of the best hitting teams in the country.

But can they pitch?

Utah has the reigning Mountain West Conference Player of the Year in C. J. Cron, and he’s a special talent. But they would need several more guys to step up to the same level to seriously challenge the Horned Frogs.

UNLV (Tim Chambers) and Air Force (Maj. Mike Kazlausky) are both breaking in brand new head coaches – fiery competitors in the Birmingham mold who each figure to improve their teams fortunes in the long run, if not that much this season.

There’s no question the Conference title is TCU’s to lose. But Coach Jim Schlossnagle is smart enough to know bad things could happen if the Frogs slack off and don’t handle success the same way they handled chasing it.  

Play ball!

Read all of Mark Knudson's blog entries HERE.
ALL TIMES MOUNTAIN

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