June 7, 2007

Less than 12 hours after Mississippi State earned a baseball Super Regional at Dudy Noble Field/Polk Dement Stadium, calls began to hotels in and around Starkville.

Nothing.

Expanding the search, a few were available in Tupelo and Meridian, but nowhere else.

All for the Super Regional? Well, kind of.

Mississippi State also is having freshman orientation this weekend, which will make the Oktibbeha town bustling. The main event, though, will be on the baseball diamond.

The Bulldogs shocked the college baseball world with two convincing wins over No. 3 Florida State in Tallahassee to earn a Super Regional bid. Clemson won the Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Regional over host Coastal Carolina, leaving both MSU and Clemson as No. 2 seeds. The committee had two choices and chose wisely.

Maybe it was economics that won out. MSU’s home stadium, when packed, can hold more than 10,000. MSU set the NCAA all-time on-campus attendance mark for a baseball game when 14,991 watched a game against Florida in 1989.

Baseball has become so big in Mississippi and considering the number families that will be in Starkville for orientation, the attendance record could fall this weekend.

Clemson faithful believe that Mississippi State athletic director Larry Templeton’s position as selection committee chairman played a part in the decision to put the series in Starkville. Yet it’s more likely the NCAA saw the difference in what Dudy Noble could hold compared to Doug Kingsmore Stadium in Clemson, which seats slightly fewer than 6,000.

The committee certainly must also have noticed the rise of college baseball in this state. MSU, Ole Miss and Southern Miss each made a regional with two getting to a Super Regional. Southern Miss lost in the Oxford Regional to the Rebels and Sam Houston State, while the Rebels won three straight to earn a Super Regional berth.

For the last two years, Oxford has hosted a Super Regional and the attendance marks were among the tops of any Super Regional.

Seeing that Dudy Noble can seat more than Swayze Field, attendance marks in this baseball-crazy state will be among the tops anywhere.

Those numbers could not have been lost on the committee.

So Clemson fans will bemoan the decision to play in Starkville. They will have trouble finding a hotel room. The weather will be stifling.

But for a purely great college baseball experience, few facilities can compare to Dudy Noble.

That’s why the committee picked MSU.