I reported on January 6th that West Virginia head coach Greg Van Zant made a proposal for a change to the RPI. (FULL STORY) It was discussed at the ABCA convention and recently was sent off to the NCAA Division 1 Baseball Committee where it will be reviewed again.
Here is the basis of the proposal:
There are four different facets of the RPI that need to be examined:
1. The weighting of the three RPI components or factors.
2. The weighting of home wins and road wins.
3. The four exempted contests against non-Division I opponents.
4. The bonus and penalty system.
My proposal is as follows:
1. Change the weighting of the three RPI factors to 50-35-15.
2. Count a road win as 1.25, a neutral win as 1.0 and a home win as 0.83333333.
3. Penalize teams for playing non-Division I opponents.
4. Eliminate the bonus and penalty system.
This proposal will end up hurting the major powers in college baseball like LSU who has put out their 2010 schedule already. They will only play two non-conference road games while playing another game against Southern Miss at a neutral site in Metairie LA. LSU isn’t the only team that focuses on getting all their out of conference games at home as it is financially beneficial for the Tigers to play at home in front of 10,000 fans.
I doubt this proposal will get far as the big name schools will make their voices heard and make it difficult for these changes to come into play.
My good friends over at College Baseball Insider have the full proposal which can be viewed by clicking here.
