This is the stone cold truth:

College baseball is a blip in our national sports landscape and in the conscience of most sports fans.  That doesn’t mean the games aren’t interesting or that the play is sub-par (it isn’t).  It just means that the love affair our country has with college football and college hoops just hasn’t quite developed with college baseball.

While Omaha, Nebraska represents the quaintness and allure of college baseball, even the long history behind the College World Series is still offset by the general lack of interest in it.  The NCAA Basketball Tournament is the biggest tournament in college sports and it’s popularity has soared through the roof over the last few decades.  The BCS — love it, hate it, wish your team was in it more — gets more attention for college football than most sports could ever dream of.  But college baseball doesn’t have big TV contracts.  It’s more of a local treasure — treasured by fans of schools, but not pertinent enough to ignite national interest.

This year, the first at the new TD Ameritrade Park, we got handed an all SEC Championship of South Carolina and Florida.  That is a regional matchup.  The reality is that people in Oregon don’t care what happens in that series.  College football and basketball has star power to drive it beyond it’s regional intimacy. It has full-core, extremely intimate analysis all season long and whether you’re a casual fan or a die hard, usually you know who the best teams that year are.

But in college baseball, ask your casual sports fan who was number 1 entering the baseball tournament and more than likely you’ll be faced with a shrug. Or a look of indifference. The answer was Virginia by the way.

There is nothing wrong with college baseball. Let me be adamant about that. I’ve been to games and they’re always a fun experience. The Animals at Florida State’s Dick Howser Stadium are some of the rowdiest fans you’ll ever meet and they’re entertainingly family friendly at the same time.  College baseball produces good players, some who go to the majors and become great.  College baseball fans are a niche audience. There are so many games that it’s not an ‘experience’ at most parks to watch a game like say a college football game or even college basketball.

That doesn’t make it bad. It just makes it different.  College football is a major business. College hoops is a big deal too.  Lost in the shuffle is college baseball which far too often goes unnoticed.

I’ve watched college baseball for years.  I remember when Arizona State and USC played in the title game back in 1998, and the two teams combined to score a whopping 35 runs (USC won 21-14).  I saw Fresno State shock the world by beating Georgia in 2008. I remember when there was a winner take all national championship game and it was played on CBS.  I used to look forward to the double elimination tournament, which resulted in quirky situations.

But since the tourney got prepackaged for ESPN, I just haven’t been as interested.  The allure of a winner take all national championship on Saturday afternoon is much more befitting in my humble opinion than a best of 3 series nestled in the middle of  a bunch of MLB games during the week. I personally think the move to prime time was a bad decision by college baseball, and took away from the quaint afternoon feel that Omaha seems to go for.

But ask your buddies. Tell them to ask their friends: “hey did you watch the College World series this year?”

I get that comparing it to college football and college basketball is rather unfair, but in the college sports pecking order, 9 miles behind in national interest is baseball, and I guess, after all these years, it’s still amazing to me that America’s “national past-time” just doesn’t generate that much national buzz in the college ranks.

California nearly lost it’s baseball team and only then did college baseball become a national story this year. Fortunately they didn’t and the Golden Bears made it all the way to the College World Series, and nearly pulled off the story of the year. They came up short.  College baseball clearly suffers because it is mostly a warm weather sport.  It’s no coincidence that the majority of teams who have won titles (and they’ve done so in clumps) are all from notoriously warm states:

Arizona (3)
Arizona State (5)
California (2)
Cal-State Fulleteron (4)
LSU (6)
Miami, FL (4)
Oklahoma (2)
USC (12)
Stanford (2)
Texas (6)

There are exceptions: Michigan (2) and  Minnesota (3) have 5 titles between them, but the last of those came in 1964.  Oregon State (2) won back to back in 2006-07, and the Gamecocks just completed their second straight World Series title.  But the numbers don’t lie, and it’s clear that there’s much more interest and usually financial backing for teams who play in baseball made climates.  Arizona, California, Texas, those are the states that historically have dominated this tourney.

The funny thing about college baseball is that it should have star power to fall back on. They do what college hoops could only dream of: namely, if you don’t apply for the MLB Draft after high school, you must go to school for 3 years before you can turn pro. Baseball has continuity.  But like the sport itself its no coincidence that the college baseball draft is the least heralded of the Big three. Mainly because despite the longevity, no one knows who most of these guys are.

College baseball doesn’t have to be something it’s not. There are plenty of fans who embrace it and love it and make it great.  But there’s just not enough national interest to make it mainstream enough to matter in a crowded sports world. It’s a shame, but it’s also the reality.

Seriously, Transformers 3 got more coverage in the Gainesville Sun then UF, which came 2 wins short of a championship.

Photo: Getty

SCOTT JACOBS

There’s a reason people love college football.  Say what you want about the playoff system or lack of one in the game, but college football purists have always argued that what makes their game unique is the added importance to a regular season that usually leaves minimal room for error, and lots of room for good, pure chaos.

But that seems to be abscent from the game this year.  Unless of course you consider the wild situation shaping up in the Pac10 where four plus teams seem to still have a crack at a Rose Bowl berth.  But that’s not what we’re driving at.

What happened to the week by week wild top 10 showcases, the games that could completely turn the college football world on its head.  What happened to the Texas Tech’s of the world?  Teams that sort of came out of nowhere to shock the world.  While we’re making Big12 references what about Kansas and Missouri?  What happened to games like those?  Games that showed up on the schedule at the end of the year, but all of a sudden merited the entire nation’s attention.

This season has been by all accounts, boring, predictable, and a bump-free ride to a seemingly foregone conclusion.  Florida and Alabama have drudged through the once again mediocre SEC (ya I said it) with the Tide boasting one very nice out of conference win (Va. Tech).  They’re still perfect, although I’d argue that they’re two of the more mediocre elite teams in some time.  Florida has Tebow, Alabama has tradition, and for me, that’s where the excitement with those teams ends.  On the other end of this joyless ride is Texas, a team screwed over by the BCS title game last year (after they played a very tough schedule and beat some very good teams).  This year’s Texas team is nowhere near as impressive and boasts a resume laughable compared to last year’s superior team.

But at number three in the polls, and with two heavyweights at one and two set to duke it out in Atlanta, the Longhorns are in the perfect spot.  Win out and no one will screw them over this year.  The question is, with just one win, ONE! over a ranked team (Oklahoma isn’t ranked) are they even worthy?

While you ponder that, consider this: It’s one thing to have two titans land on a crash course to play each other in the championship game.  It’s another to have three rather underwhelming teams with great defenses monopolizing the damn polls for a good 95% of the season.

This has been just an abysmal year for huge mega games on a week to week basis.  Remember last year with the Big12?  I mean wow, that was great.  Texas, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma all jockeying for positioning.  No one in the Big 6 of the BCS conference world went undefeated last year.  This year we could be looking at three.  But it’s been about as enjoyable as watching paint dry.

Cincinnati is in the mix, but playing in the lesser-thought-of Big East hasn’t helped their cause.  The ACC could argue that Georgia Tech is a nice team that deserves some more pub, but, who are we kidding, can anyone from that conference truly be taken seriously as a championship team?

TCU and Boise State are both undefeated and both knocking on the BCS door. The Horned Frogs are fourth and could vault into the championship game if hell freezes over.  The Broncos beat Oregon.  And uh, yeah, did we mention it was the first week of the season?

No one boasts a resume that just blows your mind.  Who has Florida played?  O right, LSU.  And they get Alabama in the title game, but that’s not part of their REGULAR season schedule.  How about Alabama?  We love to pat them on the back for their game against the Hokies, but the rest of their non conference schedule: North Texas, FIU, and Chatanooga reads like one big joke.  UF and Bama have one thing to hang their hats on: they both beat LSU… who barely just beat Lousiana Tech.

As for Texas, well they did beat UCF, which just beat Houston!  Yeah, send ‘em to Pasadena.

It would never happen, but what if a team like Cincinnati, which has arguably played better teams this year, leap-frogged the Horns?  I’m not saying they’re better, but they sure as heck seem to play much better competition.  Their non-conference slate:  Oregon State and Illinois (okay so the Illini suck, but that’s not the point).

The point is this: college football needs CHAOS!  What happened to two loss teams still being in the mix?  Parity is needed.  Dictatorship is what it feels like.  Florida needs to lose to FSU, Alabama needs to get taken out in the Iron Bowl by Auburn.  Texas needs to be uphended by Texas A&M (Hey it could happen, no?)  All of a sudden the BCS title game picture would be crystal clear with fuzziness.  UF and Alabama would be anything but locks for the title, even with a win over each other.  The Horns would probably be dropped entirely from the discussion, because HELLO!  they haven’t beaten anyone.  All of a sudden the Cincy’s, TCU’s, Boise’s, and even Georgia Tech’s of the world would have a chance.

And that’s what this season needs.  A chance.  A chance to stir the pot.  This season has gone way too long going according to plan.  We need some glitches to send the final few weeks spiraling out of control.

So here’s a plea to the underdogs taking on the self appointed big dogs: knock em down a peg would ya?  And make this season a whole lot more interesting.