The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
SEC dominant as ever in college baseball
As many as 12 teams may make national tournament.
Everyone knows the SEC is a dominant football conference. Nine of the past 12 national championships
belong to Southeastern Conference teams, and the most recent title game featured both Alabama and Georgia.
But the gridiron might not be where the conference is most successful; some would argue that SEC baseball is actually a more commanding enterprise.
This season, as many as 12 teams might make the national tournament. The record, set by the SEC, is 10. Florida, coming off a College World Series win over LSU, is considered the favorite to take home the trophy again.
All of that is “business as usual,” said D1Baseball.com analyst Aaron Fitt.
“I think the gap between the SEC and everybody else is probably wider than it’s ever been right now,” Fitt told SEC Country.
Fitt pointed out that SEC teams won 76 percent of their non-conference games this season, and that there’s a top- to-bottom depth that helps separate the conference from everybody else.
“The ACC is down and doesn’t really have an elite team that I would consider a national-title contender,” Fitt
said. “The Big 12 is the same. Maybe Texas Tech, but … In the SEC, you’ve got several [contenders]. Florida. Arkan- sas. Maybe Ole Miss. If Kentucky plays to its potential at the right time, they could be in that mix. Auburn with its starting pitching. Even Georgia has had a great year.
They’ve been waiting for this kind of success for a while
there. So I think you’ve got a number of teams that are Omaha (College World Series) caliber, in addition to the total depth of the league.”
Five or six programs are vying for No. 1 seeds during regional play (the first “section” of the national tourna- ment), which includes home- field advantage and a double-elimination format that favors the more talented team.
D1Baseball.com’s current projections include Florida, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Kentucky and Georgia as No. 1 seeds.
“For me, I think Florida and Arkansas are bona fide national-title caliber teams,”
Fitt said. “And then Stan- ford and Oregon State. Those teams are the cream of the crop, nationally. Two of the four, in my opinion, of the best teams in the country are in the SEC. And I think Florida is head and shoulders
the best team. Just a really, really complete club. As good as they were last year when they won it all, they’re better this year.”
The stacked deck means “three, four, maybe even five” teams might make it to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, he said.
And fans can still hope for a record-setting number of SEC teams in the nationa l tournament.
“Right now it feels like 10 is the most likely number
because Missouri is starting to slip,” Fitt said. “Mississippi State is on the bubble and has work to do. Even Vanderbilt’s starting to slip. So we’ll see how it plays out
over the last couple weeks, but they’ve got, I think, 12 legitimate postseason con- tenders that have a realistic chance to get in. I don’t think
they get 12, but I do think 11 is still a possibility.”