Housekeeping, A Cool Collaboration, and Final Thoughts on Omaha

Housekeeping

Hey y’all!

It’s the offseason in pretty much all sports. We’re going to do our best to be bringing you consistent content though. Starting this week, we’ll be resuming our “After Further Review” series, and we’ll be seeing content from two new writers. I’m really excited to bring them onto the team.

I’d like to take a moment to give a tip of the cap to our writer Cody Smith. He’s having to take a step away from the site, but he’s been absolutely crucial in our baseball coverage this season. You can check out his last post for a while here.

This has been a bit of a dry off-season unfortunately, but we’ll make something happen.

In the meantime, there’s a cool article in the Democrat-Gazette today about a guy who is now on our coaching staff who has an amazing story. He didn’t go about the coaching journey in a traditional manner, and it’s really awesome to see him succeed at chasing his dream. Check that out here.

A Cool Collaboration

Next, we’ve been approached by the company FOCO, asking us to show off one of their unique Arkansas products: an Andrew Benintendi bobble-head. I’m usually wary of branded collaborations, but these guys do stuff with a lot of other SB Nation sites, and I’ve gotten one of the bobble-heads to ensure quality: they’re good! We’ve got an extra, and will probably be doing some kind of giveaway, so keep an eye out for that.

You can preorder these on the FOCO website, here.

Final Thoughts on Omaha

It was a very tough way to go out of Omaha this year, but after some time thinking about it, I think there’s a lot to take out of our brief trip. Number one, I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive to feel that the team overachieved during the year, but underachieved in Omaha. I think that probably rings true. You don’t lose nine starters and make Omaha often, but we did. That’s fantastic. You also don’t come into Omaha after pretty much cruising through the Regional and Super Regional and get bounced, but unfortunately we did. That’s not fun, but it happened, and maybe this team will be better for it.

We bring back a ton of talent, including 2 out of 3 starting pitchers, and this recruiting class looks to be something special. Couple that with a point to prove, and I think we’ve got a real shot to make it back to Nebraska. This kind of run of sustained success and multiple consecutive Omaha appearances will let us continue building an amazing program. I have no doubt we’ll bring home a title under Dave Van Horn. The tools are there, and now the drive will be as well.

I hope you have a happy Tuesday. I look forward to showing all we have to show this week. Stay tuned, and go Hogs!