Ranking the Top 25 Teams in College Baseball After Week 9
As always, it’s time to discuss the college baseball top 25 weekly update. It was another fun weekend in college baseball that saw some shakeups, especially among the upper-echelon of programs. With that being said, here is the updated top 25:
To no surprise, UCLA remains as the #1 team in the nation, although they were tested for what seemed like the first time during their now 25-game win streak as it took 14 innings for them to take down Rutgers in their series opener. #2 Georgia Tech moved up one spot after their dominant sweep over #11 Florida State (formerly #5), so they made my job easy, but it wasn’t as easy stacking up the next couple of teams. The easy play for formerly ranked #2 Texas was to drop them out of the top five after dropping two games on the road to #9 Texas A&M (formerly ranked #16), however, I still like their resume a little more than #4 North Carolina’s. That was Texas’s first series loss of the season while North Carolina does have a series loss at home to Virginia under their belt. The quality of Texas’s series wins are just a bit better than North Carolina’s as well.
It was another impressive week for #5 Oregon State as they went 4-1 which included a sweep of a solid mid-major in Cal Poly, warranting a jump of two spots into the top five for the first time this year. #6 Georgia didn’t fall very far despite a series loss at home to #16 Florida (formerly #20) due to the same reasoning Texas didn’t drop far. It was the first series loss for Georgia this year and it came against a ranked opponent. The fact it happened at home hurts, but it wasn’t a sweep and it was a competitive series. #7 USC creeps back towards a top five spot with a 3-1 week and a series sweep over Iowa, while #8 Auburn’s three spot jump was more a product of Florida State, Mississippi State, and Alabama all suffering sweeps as Auburn went 2-2 on the week. I’ve stated previously in these articles that a 2-2 week needs to include a series win in order for a team to warrant a jump, which was the case for Auburn as they handled Kentucky. They did get blown up by Jacksonville State in their mid-week however, a mid-major that would have debuted on the top 25 this week had they not lost their weekend series to Liberty. The big loss did give me some pause on just how high they could climb, so they essentially just benefited from the teams ahead of them falling.
#10 Coastal Carolina jumped into the top 10 for the first time this year as they beat Wake Forest, a team that has been on the bubble for a few weeks now, and won their series on the road at Arkansas State, something not easy to do in the Sun Belt. Texas A&M does jump Coastal Carolina despite coming in to the week ranked behind Coastal and coming away with a similar week, but Texas A&M’s series win over Texas obviously holds a lot more weight. Florida State’s fall stopped at #11 due to the fact they have a road series win over #12 Virginia, so I felt the need to keep them above Virginia for the time being despite how high Virginia might have climbed after their road series win at Notre Dame. #13 Oregon was another team that came away with a 2-2 week but with a big series win over the weekend. They defeated #21 Nebraska (formerly #17) at home, a nice addition to the resume as Nebraska is the only ranked team they have played in a weekend series. #14 West Virginia did their job, taking a series on the road at Texas Tech and going 3-1 on the week, so they continue their climb and benefit from a few teams ahead of them falling.
The five SEC teams all ranked next to each other between 15 and 19 was a super tough group to rank. #15 Mississippi State’s fall of seven spots was based off of Florida State’s six spot fall. Mississippi State had to fall further than Florida State due to the fact that it came at home, but it also couldn’t be too far considering it came against a Tennessee team that is no slouch despite being unranked, and Mississippi State was in all three games. There was certainly a case for #16 Florida to slot in front of Mississippi State with their road series win at Georgia, but they’re still too much of an uncertain product to feel confident in that move. Florida, #17 Arkansas, and #18 Alabama have all swept each other which made stacking up those three teams in specific extremely hard. What it came down to was the fact that Alabama’s sweep of Florida came at home while Arkansas’s sweep of Alabama this weekend came on the road and Florida’s sweep of Arkansas also came on the road, so Florida comes in right over Arkansas, and Arkansas right in front of Alabama. Regardless of resumes, a sweep of a team on the road is going to earn you a spot over that team when it comes down to a pinch as it does in this case. #19 Oklahoma finally came away with what felt like their first convincing week in a while with a road series win over Vanderbilt, but their home series loss to Alabama keeps them slotted right behind them for the time being.
#20 Southern Miss was one of this week’s biggest fallers after sticking at #13 for three consecutive weeks. They went 2-2 for the third week in a row, but rather than winning their weekend series which they did in their last three, they dropped two of three to a Louisiana team that entered the weekend 3-9 in the Sun Belt. Regardless of the fact that the Sun Belt is the best mid-major conference, mid-majors can’t be dropping multiple conference series, which Southern Miss has now done, if they want to remain on the top 25 for an extended period of time. With that being said, Southern Miss’s series this weekend with Texas State will be a huge one as Texas State is demanding the respect of these rankings and would have had a case to make their top 25 debut had they not dropped their weekend series to Troy.
#22 NC State, #23 Ole Miss, and #24 Boston College all won their weekends, so there was no reason to shuffle these teams, but rather move them up a spot as formerly ranked #23 UCF dropped from the rankings. NC State unfortunately stayed put at #22 despite a 3-1 week and a series win over Duke as I couldn’t justify dropping Nebraska or Southern Miss below them. As for the team that took UCF’s place, it was the team that swept them over the weekend and took down Nebraska in their mid-week, #25 Kansas. Kansas was the only newcomer on this week’s update as there just wasn’t anyone else close enough to the bottom other than UCF that warranted a drop from the list. Tennessee certainly had a strong case to re-join the top 25 with their road sweep at Mississippi State after a one-week hiatus, but like I said, UCF was the only team worth dropping and it made the most sense to add Kansas considering the direction they have been trending, and the fact they were the team that beat UCF.
Aside from Tennessee, Arizona State, Jacksonville State, and California Baptist remain on the bubble while Miami and UC Santa Barbara joined the conversation as well. Arizona State’s 2-2 week wasn’t enough to finally break through while California Baptist still hasn’t dropped a series, but their 19-1 loss to UT Arlington in their series finale stuck out like a sore thumb when giving them consideration. UC Santa Barbara came away with one of the strongest week’s in the country, taking down USC in their mid-week and a strong UC San Diego team over the weekend, so one more strong week could be all it takes for them to make their top 25 debut next week. Miami continues trending back up towards the top 25 as well with four consecutive series wins since their early season skid.
