After taking two of three from Southern Miss last weekend, Tech has aligned itself well to get an at-large bid into the NCAA Regionals. This is hardly guaranteed, though. Tech still needs two or three wins this weekend and a couple more in Biloxi next weekend to have a real shot.
This thin margin for error means the team must look at anything (allowed by the NCAA) that can help them win. While I’m sure Head Coach Lane Burroughs is hard at work towards the goal of a second regional in three years, I want to make an unconventional suggestion:
Find the jersey color that will help Tech win.
So Tech baseball has four uniforms. Two for the school colors (red and blue), and two neutral colors (white and black). As with most things, I’m sure everyone has a favorite. But aesthetics don’t really matter when a team is vying for a postseason birth.
What matters is which uniform option will help Tech win.
Red Should Be The Best
If you’ve read the State-T post from a few months ago, you probably know where I’m going with this. But before we look at statistics, let’s ask science.
According to a study published in 2005, competitors that wear red win more. The study looked at the sport of wrestling in the 2004 Olympic Games. When two wrestlers are equally matched, the wrestler that wore red won 55% of the time.
And you know who has a red uniform? Well, lots of teams, but we’re talking about Tech here. But does having a red uniform help the Bulldogs?
CUSA.tv
Unfortunately, I did not keep track of which uniform Tech wore every game at the time. But luckily, most of the games are available on CUSA.tv to stream. So I went into each game and recorded the uniform Tech wore:
| Opponent | W/L | Color | Opponent | W/L | Color | |
| McNeese St | W | White | FIU | L | Blue | |
| SIUE | W | Blue | FIU | W | White | |
| SIUE | W | White | FIU | W | Red | |
| SIUE | L | Red | UALR | L | White | |
| NSU | L | Black | UTSA | W | Blue | |
| Grambling | W | White | UTSA | W | Black | |
| HBU | W | Blue | Charlotte | L | Blue | |
| HBU | W | White | Charlotte | L | Blue | |
| HUB | W | Red | Charlotte | W | Red | |
| Rice | W | Blue | ULL | W | White | |
| Rice | W | White | MTSU | L | Blue | |
| Rice | W | White | MTSU | W | White | |
| ULM | W | Red | MTSU | L | Red | |
| UAB | L | Blue | USM | W | Black | |
| UAB | W | Red | USM | L | Blue | |
| UAB | W | Black | USM | W | Red |
Now let’s break that down into how each uniform did:
| Color | G | W | L | Color | G | W | L | |
| Red | 8 | 6 | 2 | White | 10 | 9 | 1 | |
| Blue | 10 | 4 | 6 | Black | 4 | 3 | 1 |
So far, without a doubt, blue is the worst uniform so far. Of the 10 losses covered by CUSA.tv that we’ve looked at so far, more than half of them were in “blue” games.
But before I make the case that we abandon our primary colored uniform, let’s see if we can get a larger sample size.
Other Video Options
CUSA.tv is not the only way to watch a baseball game (thank god), so what about games that aired on other services?
The Pepperdine games aired on theW.tv, the Frisco Classic games aired on Youtube, and the game at ULL played on their own site. Here’s how those games went down:
| Opponent | W/L | Color | Opponent | W/L | Color | |
| Pepperdine | L | Blue | Texas A&M | W | White | |
| Pepperdine | W | Red | California | W | Blue | |
| Pepperdine | L | Red | Baylor | L | Red | |
| Pepperdine | W | Black | ULL | L | Blue |
It’s worth noting that the LSU game was aired on SECN+ (a streaming option), but it is no longer available to view on WatchESPN.
Adding those games to the tally before, we get:
| Color | G | W | L | Color | G | W | L | |
| Red | 11 | 7 | 4 | White | 11 | 10 | 1 | |
| Blue | 13 | 5 | 8 | Black | 5 | 4 | 1 |
Somehow blue got even worse after going 1-2 in this stretch. But before we draw any conclusions, are there any other games we can add to our scope?
Miscellaneous Games
So far we have been able to get “data” for all but thirteen contests. But what about those games that aren’t available to stream? Well, luckily, for a few of the remaining games, I was able to find what the team was wearing.
| Opponent | W/L | Color | Opponent | W/L | Color | |
| LSU | L | Black | Marshall | W | Red | |
| Grambling | W | Blue | WKU | L | Blue | |
| Marshall | W | Blue | WKU | W | Red |
For the games at LSU and WKU, the opponents had a photo gallery up with pictures from the game. WKU should have had the games up on CUSA.tv, but didn’t because reasons.
And speaking of ballgames that should have been on the service I pay for to watch C-USA games, I had to find clips of the Marshall games from a YouTube channel of a West Virginian news station.
This still leaves seven games unaccounted for, but we will have to work with what we have. Here’s the final tally of how each uniform option did:
| Color | G | W | L | Color | G | W | L | |
| Red | 13 | 9 | 4 | White | 11 | 10 | 1 | |
| Blue | 16 | 7 | 9 | Black | 6 | 4 | 2 |
Conclusions
It’s obvious the white uniform is the best of the rotation. It’s also my personal favorite, so you can tell I’m not biased in any way when I say that. So I suggest Tech wears the white uniform for every remaining game.
While science says wearing red should help the Bulldogs, this (admittedly small sample sized) data suggests otherwise. Red is far from the worst uniform has, but still not as nice as white.
Unfortunately, the blue uniform has to go. Tech has the rare opportunity of getting into the NCAA Regionals, and it depends on how we do in the last few games. We really can’t take any chances.