Not since 1966, when Ohio State took the title, has a northern team won an NCAA baseball championship.

In fact, since 1990, the farthest north the crown has traveled is Southern California.

There are many factors that go into the dominance equation -- warm weather and beaches equals great recruiting, year-round training and abundant talent.

Though there's no way the NCAA can neutralize the advantage by coercing the sun to shine closer to the north, plans are in the works to establish a uniform start date for practice and games for the college season.

"It's important," Penn State coach Robbie Wine said. "I thought this all along, even at Oklahoma State. The uniform start date for the northern schools is a must. The southern schools are taking advantage of all that weather and they're beating up on northern schools early. They're using that RPI as a gauge for Regionals and it's hurting northern schools. [The uniform start] will help even things out."

Before Penn State played its first game Saturday, traditional powerhouses Miami (Fla.), Stanford and Texas were already a combined 22-2.

If agreed upon, the new starting date would not come into effect for a few years, most likely the 2007 or 2008 season, according to a Jan. 10 story by The Associated Press.

Starting the season at the same time as the national powers won't exactly even the playing field.

Teams in Florida, Texas and California have superior tradition, facilities and a more appealing draw for the top recruits.

Penn State and the other cold-weather teams are stuck inside for much of the preseason. When teams finally plays someone else, they normally have to fly south.

The main reason for a uniform start date is to reduce some of the advantage that supporters believe warm-weather schools get from beginning their seasons earlier.

Teams like Penn State will take any such thing they can get.

"It's very important just because it evens out the playing field a little bit," senior shortstop Michael Milliron said. "It can only help us. It won't hurt them. It'll just take some of their advantage and lessen it a little bit."

Pushing the start date back would also force the season to run deeper into the summer than usual. The College World Series typically takes place near the end of June.

Wine thinks that it would not only help his program gain some ground, but also help in the classroom.

"It will make the College World Series right around July 4, which kind of is a good thing," he said.

"As far as academically, Penn State is an academic school. Pushing that schedule back for where more games are when school is out is a plus for us because then you're not dipping into academics."

In the meantime, Penn State will be traveling down south or out west until the end of March, when the Nittany Lions finally have their home opener on March 23.