The NCAA Division I baseball committee proposed legislation at its summer meeting in Colorado Springs, Colo., that would change the look of regional play in the NCAA tournament.

The legislation would allow the committee to seed the top 16 teams in the 64-team field, doubling the current number of national seeds; to increase the minimum bid to serve as a regional host from $35,000 to $50,000; and to place teams from the same conference in the same regional if more than 50 percent of the teams from that conference earn tournament bids.

The NCAA championships/competition cabinet will vote on all three items separately on Sept. 21, and changes would take effect for the 2006 season.

The baseball committee continued to discuss the possibility of playing super-regional series at neutral sites, a move that could begin as early as 2008. "We're still doing more study on neutral sites," said Dennis Poppe, the NCAA's managing director for baseball.

The committee also chose Mississippi State athletics director Larry Templeton as chair, replacing the Florida State's Charlie Carr, whose four-year term on the committee ended. Brian Quinn and Tim Weiser, the athletic directors at Cal State Fullerton and Kansas State, were chosen in February to replace outgoing members Carr (Florida State) and Bill Rowe (Southwest Missouri State) on the committee; Templeton joined a year ago to replace Louisiana State's Skip Bertman.

The committee's active role only includes the administration of the NCAA tournament, but members also took time to discuss issues involving the sport during their meeting at the end of July.

The main talking points included defeating an amendment to the change-of-season plan that would eliminate four regular season games. The Division I championships/competition cabinet supported making the last Friday in February the mandatory start date for college baseball, but added an amendment to reduce the current 56-game schedule to 52 games. That total works out to four games per week in the 13-week season that this change-of-season plan would establish.

The baseball issues committee, which proposed the change-of-season plan (that also establishes a Feb. 1 start date for practice and allows a 45-day window for the completion of fall practice), debated trimming the number of regular-season games during its meetings but ultimately decided against the idea.

Poppe said he would ask that the change-of-season plan and games reduction idea be split into separate pieces of legislation rather than the current bootstrapped proposal. "There's no compelling evidence that the 56-game schedule has any impact on (academics), and we'd like to study it to see it if does," Poppe said.

Dave Keilitz, American Baseball Coaches Association executive director, said he planned to write letters to coaches across the nation urging them to express their desire to preserve the 56-game schedule to their school administrators and league commissioners, who have a chance to offer their opinions as the legislation moves to the NCAA management council in October.

"We don't have any power over that. It's frustrating," said Mike Gaski, baseball committee member and UNC Greensboro coach. "It's frustrating. At Larry's suggestion, we voted to notify the championship cabinet that we unanimously oppose that. That's all we can do."

Final approval from the NCAA's board of directors couldn't come before April 2006, so the 2007 season would be the first in which this change could take affect, though 2008 looks more likely.

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By Will Kimmey
Baseball America