In what was quite a debate last season, coaches across the country grumbled to no end about the uniform start date combining with a 13-week playing season.

Many coaches said their players were too tired to study at times. Texas coach Augie Garrido even complained about the 13-week season hindering quality practice for his team, which ended the season in the College World Series.

Coaches such as Garrido shouldn’t worry too much about that for now. The 14-week playing season appears to be here to stay. However, there are plenty of others that don’t exactly the share the same positive sentiment about the schedule change.

“There are 56 schools that submitted votes to override the legislation for making the season 14 weeks with the week added to the beginning of the schedule,” ABCA Executive Director Dave Keilitz said. “The legislation takes a 5/8 majority to overturn. As of right now, we believe it’s unlikely to be overturned.”

Keilitz said during the Division I meeting at the ABCA convention on Thursday that the proposal to have the weekend added to the back end of the schedule was supported by a few major baseball-playing conferences. Many Big Ten coaches, including Michigan’s Rich Maloney, have backed the idea of having the week added to the end of the season. Maloney argued a few months ago that northern schools already are hurt enough by having to start their seasons on the road.

In a perfect world, most northern programs would like to have the entire season pushed back a week, perhaps opening the opportunity of drawing southern schools up to their region at some point during the season.

If for some reason the override works and the 14-week season with the week added to the beginning of the schedule is eliminated, the NCAA will work with schools to remedy potential contractual issues involved with scheduling.

“The override vote is schedule for next week in Atlanta,” NCAA Director for Baseball and Football Damani Leach said. “Regardless of the vote, though, we will allow a reprieve for institutions that have scheduled games.”

In other interesting news, there still are several conferences proposing to reduce the number of regular season contests from 56 to 52. Also, there’s a chance in the future the College World Series could be pushed back a week.

Keilitz said that as institutions try to find ways to reduce expenses, the likelihood of reducing the regular season schedule increases. However, for the time being, the ABCA is firmly committed to keeping the 56-game schedule.

“I think having 56 games in the spring is critical to our season,” Keilitz said. “I also believe having 14 weeks in the season also is important.”

If some of the northern schools get their way and a week eventually is added to the end of the season, that change also would require the NCAA to move the CWS back a week. There are some issues tied with that idea, however.

“The City of Omaha said there were some obstacles in moving back the CWS, such as making sure it doesn’t fall on the Fourth of July,” Keilitz said. “In the end, though, they said they could live with most aspects of the idea.”

The earliest the CWS could move back a week is 2013. Omaha is slated to host the United States Swimming Olympic Trials in 2012. Keilitz said they have their sights set on possibly moving back the CWS in ’13, ’14 and ’15, and returning to the normal schedule in ’16, ’17 and ’18.

Also worth mentioning is the NCAA’s television contract with ESPN.

Keilitz explained that because of contractual obligations with Major League Baseball, professional tennis and professional golf, moving back the CWS would force the network to televise many of the CWS contests in secondary stations outside of ESPN and ESPN2.

The great schedule debate won’t end anytime soon.

APR update

The ABCA introduced some great news when it comes to the APR and college baseball.

College baseball scored a 946 average over the last four years. The sport also has seen a 31-point rise over the last five years, which is the best of any NCAA supported sport.

Championship update

• With the FIFA World Cup being played the same time as the ’10 CWS, Leach and the NCAA announced that first pitches for some later games will be delayed throughout the event.

• The CWS earned a cable rating of 1.48 in ’09, which was the highest in event history. Also, the championship-clinching game between LSU and Texas earned a cable rating of 2.3, which equated to over 3.2 million viewers. The CWS Finals average 2.7 million viewers.

Proposed legislation

• Preclude institutions from producing media guides and other materials in hard copy format. Also, preclude institutions from providing hard copy media guides to potential prospects.

• Amendments also are on the table to redefine the definitions of undergraduate student assistant coaches, student manager and non-coaching staff program members.

Other important issues

• The squad size will increase from 25 to 27 players for all rounds of the ’10 NCAA championship. The official travel party size will remain at 35.

• The NCAA announced that a direct hard line telephone from the dugout to the bullpen will now be permissible in all rounds of the ’10 championship.

• The committee voted to allow the pitch speed to appear on the video board during all rounds of the ’10 championship.