With a rather depressing performance in the Chapel Hill regional now over, it’s officially time to start talking about what exactly Nebraska baseball fans expect from Will Bolt’s program and whether the expectations need to be lowered. In the process, it’s probably long past time to discuss expectations about any team from the Big Ten that plays baseball east of Los Angeles.
After a Cinderella run in the Big Ten tournament for the second straight year that bought the Cornhuskers a few more days of the season, they didn’t often look like they wanted to play in the postseason when it was finally time to answer the bell. Even in a 4-1 win over Holy Cross, they didn’t look sharp nor focused.
However, the way they played a good but not world-beating Oklahoma team really underlined what has been a problem in the postseason under Bolt. The Sooners ambushed the Nebraska baseball team on Friday, taking a 7-0 lead into the late innings. The Huskers did manage to rally for four runs in the 8th but couldn’t find a way to add on in the 9th.
Then there was that season-extending, if not exactly impressive, win over Holy Cross, and then came Sunday. After a lot of talk about how much fight they showed on Saturday to stay alive, there wasn’t much fight in the rematch against Oklahoma, and they lost by a whopping 17-1 margin.
BASEBALL & SOFTBALL: ⚾️🥎💰🏟️
— Tony Altimore (@TJAltimore) May 27, 2024
BIGGEST BUDGETS + ATTENDANCE
1 of 2 ⚾️ - Per Dept. of Education + NCAA
With all the focus on the 64 teams making the NCAA's Baseball + Softball tournaments, here's a look at which 64 teams invest the most in each sport, and how many fans they draw: pic.twitter.com/dToNj3afMM
Try this stat on for size: The Huskers have allowed 17 runs in back-to-back regional elimination games.
Last year, their 17-11 loss was at least to the regional host and eventual College World Series Champions. This year, it was to a team that hasn’t scored double-digit runs in a game since April 18 and lost to the regional host 11-4 on Saturday.
Should another Regional rout force Nebraska to rethink expectations under coach Will Bolt?
All of this is to say that it doesn’t appear there’s any concern that Bolt will be shown the door, despite needing a miracle run sparked by a dropped fly ball to make the postseason. Are the expectations too low for the Huskers’ head coach? Consider his career here so far:
2025: Embarrassingly run out of the regionals after a very mediocre 28-27 regular season capped by a Big Ten Tournament run, getting them an automatic bid in the postseason.
2024: Much better 34-19 regular season capped by a longer run through the Big Ten tournament and then a 1-2 showing in the regional.
2023: Decent but not great 31-21 regular season, and 2-2 showing in the Big Ten Tournament, no postseason.
2022: Horrendous 23-30 season, not even a Big Ten Tournament.
2021: Sparkling 31-12 regular season and took Arkansas to the brink in the Fayatteville regional.
One of these things is not like the other.
It could be argued that its’ been four years since the Nebraska baseball team performed up to what the expectations used to be. These days, many Husker fans seem content to just make a regional, no matter how they got in.
Maybe that’s a fair expectation. After all, it doesn’t appear the university is devoting much in the way of resources to baseball. Last year, strategy and analytics consultant Tony Altimore laid out a graphic showing the Top 64 teams in college baseball in program investment.
Nebraska, according to Altimore was ranked 45th in the nation. They’re 7th in the Big Ten behind all four of the new additions to the conference, Iowa (of all teams) and Michigan.
It’s worth pointing out that those numbers are from FY 2023, so are not all that up to date and reflective of what next season will be with rev sharing.
From a big picture perspective, it’s an open question as to whether the Nebraska baseball team has looked like a Top 50 program in the country (there are 307 D1 baseball teams) the last few years. RPI is far from the end all and be all in this argument, but as of today’s loss, they are 53rd in RPI. Last year they finished No. 29 and in 2023 they finished an embarrassing 99th.
To some degree, this is all a moot point. Will Bolt’s job isn’t in jeopardy. Nebraska baseball fans are content with the job he’s done since arriving in Lincoln. The question is whether they should be.