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Last week, the SEC announced that they’d be scheduling a full season for baseball in 2021 and allowing teams to plan a full 56 game slate including out-of-conference teams. It’s an attempt at some form of normalcy after the 2020 baseball season was cut short on the eve of conference play. LSU was minutes from loading the bus to Ole Miss last year when the decision was made.
As no one played an SEC game last year, the SEC is reusing the matchups and home/away decisions from last season, though the order has been adjusted slightly. Here is LSU’s weekend draw, with their D1Baseball.com Top 25 Preseason rankings.
- 3/19 vs #7 M State
- 3/26 @ #19Tenn
- 4/1 vs #4 Vandy
- 4/9 @ UK
- 4/16 vs #18 SCar
- 4/23 @ #6 Ole Miss
- 4/30 vs #8 Ark
- 5/7 @ #23 Aub
- 5/14 v Bama
- 5/20 @ A&M
As you can see, the SEC is LOADED once again this year. #12 LSU lucks out in missing #1 Florida, but plays every other ranked team in the conference. There are also some great scheduling moments in 2021, with the conference opening weekend vs State, the regular season ending on the road at A&M in the boiling late May, there’s even a trip to UK’s brand new ballpark. If I have a gripe, it’s the road trip to Auburn not being the last weekend of the year. LSU has usually used that schedule confluence to go straight to Hoover from Auburn, but no luck this year.
The SEC/LSU has not released TV plans yet, but all conference and home games will be on an ESPN platform of some kind. LSU has also not released any plans for limited capacity seating at Alex Box, but given that COVID numbers in Louisiana are worse than they were last spring and going in the wrong direction, it’s highly unlikely LSU will have full capacity until very late in the season, if at all. Frankly, LSU and the SEC will be lucky if only a few conference weekends are lost to quarantine protocols. It’s a rough hand to be dealt that college baseball should have two seasons damaged by the pandemic, but such is life.
Out of conference, LSU will have a typical eclectic lineup of teams from all over America. It is noticeably absent any ranked teams or Power 5 competition (are we still counting Notre Dame as ACC?) but that’s scheduling in a pandemic. Notably, LSU will play every D1 baseball team in the state, including some tough road traps at UL-Lafayette’s new Russo Park stadium, a visit to Blake Dean’s Fightin’ Privateers on the Lakefront, and the Greenies on the blasphemous carpet in Uptown.
- 2/19 Weekend - Air Force, Notre Dame, La Tech (weekend round robin)
- 2/23 - Southern
- 2/24 - @ USL
- 2/26 Weekend - UC Riverside
- 3/3 Nicholls
- 3/5 Weekend - Oral Roberts
- 3/9 Texas Southern
- 3/10 @ UNO
- 3/12 Weekend - UTSA
- 3/16 SELA
- *SEC Play starts
- 3/23 @ Tulane
- 3/30 South Alabama
- 4/26 McNeese
- 4/13 Grambling
- 4/20 ULM
- 5/4 Southern
- 5/11 La Tech
- 5/18 Northwestern