We are less than a month away from the first pitch of the Gators 2010 baseball season so as the Gatorsfirst.com’s resident hardball analyst, I’ve ordered my season tickets and will be doing updates throughout the season with (hopefully) some interview material.

The UAA has currently crimped my access slightly by refusing my request for a press pass, but I’m thinking someone as resourceful as yours truly will find a way to get a quote or two. This is apparently a school wide policy on providing media passes only to websites affiliated with a traditional outlet such as a newspaper or television station.

Leading off is a look at the schedule. Part two about the players will be out in a few days.

I’ll do an in depth preview of each opponent as the season progresses, this is more of a quick overview. The NCAA has changed the length of the baseball season several times in the last decade. This season an extra week was added back, which means less weeks with two weekday games.

The last several seasons there were games almost every Tuesday and Wednesday. After a two game midweek series against Illinois State in games 13 and 14, Florida plays only one midweek opponent each week the rest of the year.

Like most southern and western (read: warm weather) teams the Gators play the majority of their games at home, with 34 of their scheduled 56 games played on Perry Field at McKethan Stadium. Florida opens with an eight game home stand beginning with a three game set, February 19-21 (HINT OPENING DAY IS 2/19) versus the University of South Florida. Florida plays four games total against the Bulls this season; traveling to Tampa on Wednesday, April 21st in a midweek tilt between the road series at Kentucky and the home series against Arkansas.

Central Florida and Siena stop through town for single games in the first two midweek games of the season Feb 24-25. The Gators swept Siena to open the 2008 campaign in a three game series. For the 2nd year in a row UF host an Atlantic 10 opponent for a three game series early in the season. Last season it was Duquesne, who the Gators fought and swept 10-5, 5-3, and 12-2.

On an unrelated but sad for the sport note, Duquesne is discontinuing their baseball program after 2010. Hopefully the Orange and Blue can pull off the sweep of La Salle on Feb 26-28th without the help of a benches clearing brawl.

Florida’s first game away from the friendly confines of McKethan is a neutral site game against Florida State in Tampa. For the last several years, the FSU series was three games: one game in Tallahassee, one in Gainesville, and one in Jacksonville.

This season adds a fourth game in “The Florida Four” at George Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. This is a two game event on March 2nd that sees Miami play South Florida at 4PM, and FSU and Florida play at 8PM.

The first true road games of the year follow, as the three game Miami series is in Coral Gables this year from March 5th to the 7th. I miss the schedule from my youth that saw weekend rivalry games the first four weekends of the season. With the two game series at both FSU and UM, and two game series versus each at home, fans got to see two of their biggest rivals every year.

This schedule changed this slightly in 2001 (dropping a game with FSU) and dropped completely in 2002, instead going to a 3 game home and away alternating yearly series with Miami, and eventually making the FSU series the midweek series spread out over the course of the year it remains today.

After the quick four game road jaunt, UF returns home to play the aforementioned series with Illinois State March 9-10th, followed by a three game series with Charleston Southern on the 12-14th. FSU comes in to play game two of the season series in Gainesville on Tuesday, March 16th as a final tune up before SEC play begins. The rest of the non conference games are against Florida schools.

The Gators shouldn’t have to worry about RPI or strength of schedule since they have plenty of ranked and almost ranked opponents on the docket. The interstate matchups should be great games since the Collegiate Baseball News preseason top 40 poll rankings list FSU at #7, Florida at #9, Miami at #12, USF #35 and Florida Gulf Coast at #38.

The Gators play a single midweek game against Florida Gulf Coast on March 28th, for a total of 12 games against ranked in state opponents. UF also plays single games against Central Florida (Feb 24th), Jacksonville (April 6th), Bethune-Cookman (May 4th), Florida Atlantic (May 12th), and North Florida (May 18th).

Some of those other Florida schools are no slacks either. Jacksonville, UCF, and BCC received votes in the preseason poll, putting them somewhere in the top 100. Also influencing the overall strength of schedule is the strength of the SEC as a baseball conference. All 12 SEC schools are either ranked (6) or received votes (6) in the preseason poll.

There are 286 D1 baseball teams in case you were wondering. To put that in perspective (how everything is judged in the South), using percentages to compare, all 11 ranked opponents would be in the top 16 in the football poll, and all the schools receiving votes in the top 40. Who says Florida needs to travel to play a hard schedule (sound familiar)? So 45 games out of 56 games will be against the top third quality competition, meaning this club will be battle tested by the time the post season rolls around.

The SEC schedule appears to have broken well for the Gators as they play four of six preseason ranked opponents in Gainesville. Auburn rotates off the SEC schedule this season.

March 19-21 Mississippi State
March 26-28 @ #22 Mississippi
April 2-4 #32 Vanderbilt
April 9-11 @ Tennessee
April 16-18 @ Kentucky
April 23-25 #23 Arkansas
April 30-May 2 #2 Louisiana State
May 7-9 @ Alabama
May 14-16 #31 Georgia
May 20-22 @ #28 South Carolina

The make or break stretch of the season lies from April 9th to May 2nd. Florida plays eight straight road games against Tennessee (3), FSU (1), Kentucky (3), and USF (1). We already talked about how good FSU and USF should be, mixed in with two SEC road series. This is followed by Arkansas and LSU, six of the hardest home games of the season.

Anything 8-6 or better should be looked upon as success in this stretch. Why 8-6? This would probably mean the Gators won a midweek game, and 3 of the 4 SEC series. Getting sweeps and getting swept on weekend series is usually rare, so win two out of three in three SEC series, one of three in the other, and a split of the weekday games versus ranked teams would be 8-6. Anything else on top is cake.