College baseball notebook: Georgia Tech, Oregon, West Virginia, Texas top seeds in power conferences
Tournament champions in 29 conferences will be automatic qualifiers in the 64-team national tournament, which opens with regional play May 30.
Regional hosts will be announced Sunday and the rest of the field next Monday. The College World Series is June 13 through June 22 or 23 in Omaha, Nebraska.
A look at the tournaments in the power conferences:
Atlantic Coast Conference
Site: Durham Bulls Athletic Park; Durham, North Carolina.
Days: Tuesday to Sunday.
2024 champion: Duke.
Short hops: The Yellow Jackets won their first outright regular-season title since 2005, and it came in 32-year coach Danny Hall's final season. ... Six ACC teams won at least 17 conference games. ... Florida State LHP Jamie Arnold (6-2, 2.59 ERA) is the No. 3 MLB draft prospect by MLB.com. ... Jake Knapp's 2.14 ERA for North Carolina ranks second in the nation among pitchers with at least 80 innings pitched. ... This is the 51st ACC Tournament and 27th played in the state of North Carolina. Only Virginia and Clemson have participated in all of them. FSU's Alex Lodise is batting an ACC- and power conference-leading .422.
Big Ten
Site: Charles Schwab Field; Omaha, Nebraska.
2024 champion: Nebraska.
Short hops: The Ducks shared the regular-season title with UCLA after sweeping Iowa on the road, outscoring the Hawkeyes 32-10 with 11 homers in the three games. ... The four former Pac-12 teams that entered the conference this season are all top-five seeds: No. 1 Oregon, No. 2 UCLA, No. 4 Southern California and No. 5 Washington. Iowa is No. 3. ... Oregon's Mason Neville leads the nation with 26 homers. ... UCLA's Michael Barnett (10-1) leads the Big Ten in wins. ... Benny Casillas of Michigan is batting a Big Ten-best .406.
Big 12
Days: Wednesday to Saturday.
2024 champion: Oklahoma State.
Short hops: The 12-team tournament will be played in a single-elimination format for the first time. ... West Virginia comes in off four straight losses after getting swept by Kansas. The Mountaineers finished percentage points ahead of the Jayhawks for their first outright regular-season title in baseball since joining the Big 12 in 2012-13. ... Kansas earned the second seed, its highest Big 12 seeding in program history. ... Arizona's 34 triples are most in the nation since New Mexico State had the same number in 2019. ... Cincinnati's Kennington Cross is batting a Big 12-best .414.
Southeastern Conference
Site: Metropolitan Complex; Hoover, Alabama.
Days: Tuesday through Sunday.
2024 champion: Tennessee.
Short hops: Texas is the first team to win the SEC regular-season title in its first season since the league's inaugural campaign in 1933. ... The Longhorns' 42-11 regular-season record was its best since 2010. ... Tennessee's Andrew Fischer leads the SEC in homers (22), slugging (.779), on-base percentage (.502), on-base plus slugging (1.281) and walks (56). ... Arkansas' .983 fielding percentage is second nationally. ... Dylan Volantis' 11 saves in SEC play for Texas are a freshman conference record.
In the polls
LSU (42-13) won two of three at South Carolina and remains No. 1 in the D1Baseball.com and Baseball America polls.
D1Baseball.com ranks Texas (42-11) second and North Carolina (39-12) third. Baseball America has North Carolina second and Georgia (42-14) third.
The Longhorns won two of three at Oklahoma, the Tar Heels took two of three at Florida State and the Bulldogs won two of three at home against Georgia.
Cleanup spot
Columbia tied its program record with seven home runs in a 14-6 win over Harvard in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, making the Lions the first team to clinch an NCAA Tournament bid. ... East Tennessee State won its first Southern Conference regular-season title since 1980 with an 11-2 win over the Citadel on Saturday. ... Louisville scored at least one run in every inning of a 14-9 win over Wake Forest on Saturday. ... Charleston Southern's Kaden Smith tied the NCAA single-game record with five doubles in a 14-4 win over Gardner-Webb on Thursday. Smith became the ninth player to do it and first since Appalachian State's Luke Drumheller against Furman in 2019.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Part of wild UCLA-Tennessee QB swap, Joey Aguilar excited to start for No. 24 Vols
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Joey Aguilar is half of college football's wildest flip-flops. When Nico Iamaleava departed Tennessee in April for UCLA, the quarterback left the Trojans to join the Volunteers. Now Aguilar has Iamaleava's old starting job. 'Coming out here and being the starting quarterback for this program is nothing but excitement, and that's all I can say," Aguilar said Wednesday. "I'm just super excited.' Adapting to changing circumstances is nothing new for the 24-year-old quarterback. When the coronavirus pandemic shut down junior college football in 2020, Aguilar was preparing to start on his goal to be a firefighter. He was lured back to football where he played two seasons at Diablo Valley Community College in California. He then played 25 games at Appalachian State in 2023 and 2024. Aguilar was ready to test himself at UCLA when Iamaleava was not welcome at Tennessee just before the Vols' spring game. Iamaleava transferred to UCLA . So Aguilar, who has the Bible verse Proverbs 3:5-6 tattooed on his ribs, gambled on moving again. Even Aguilar can't quite believe how everything has turned out. 'If you would tell me that in 2021, 2022, I probably would not believe it," Aguilar said. "I was in juco at that time, looking at players at this level, like, 'Dang, that's crazy. I wish I was there.' And here I am. I just got to thank Jesus for giving me the opportunity to be here.' Aguilar arrived on campus in Knoxville in May. He has size at 6-foot-3 and 225 pounds and a resume featuring 6,760 yards passing with 56 touchdowns at Appalachian State. He also ran for 452 yards and five more scores. Aguilar will make his 25th career start Aug. 30 when the 24th-ranked Volunteers open the season in Atlanta against Syracuse. He had to beat out Jake Merklinger, who appeared in two games last season, and freshman George MacIntyre. Aguilar did it by quickly learning coach Josh Heupel's offense that the other quarterbacks already knew. That involved early mornings, late nights, lots of film and talking with coaches to learn both game plans and the concept of what Tennessee does on offense. "It took a while, but I got it down,' Aguilar said. Heupel said Tuesday that Aguilar showed just how comfortable he had become to the point he was able to control the offense as coaches asked. Tennessee announced Aguilar as the starter Sunday night in a social media post. 'His decision-making accuracy with the football, you know, our checks that he controls, you put all that together, and that's ultimately why we made the decision,' Heupel said. Even with his experience, Aguilar has had to adjust to just how fast Heupel wants Tennessee's offense to operate. The Vols ran an average of three plays per minute in his first season and at a rate of 10 seconds per play in his second. They mostly stuck to the ground reaching the College Football Playoff last season. How fast the Vols go this season will depend on Aguilar. He ran an up-tempo offense in 2023 at Appalachian State. 'We were like pretty on the ball, just not as fast,' Aguilar said. "So just getting used to getting in the signal and lining up and going through my progressions was just an adjustment I had to make.' As strange as this journey has been, Aguilar thanked his family, friends and coaches for supporting him all the way as he prepares to make his next start. 'I wouldn't go back and would want to change my journey at all.' Aguilar said. ___
Fox Sports
an hour ago
- Fox Sports
Michigan's Real Punishment? A $20M-Plus Gut Punch That Deserves Our Attention
College Football Michigan's Real Punishment? A $20M-Plus Gut Punch That Deserves Our Attention Published Aug. 20, 2025 6:18 p.m. ET share facebook x reddit link Forget the headlines about suspensions and show-cause penalties — Joel Klatt says the real hammer in the Michigan sign-stealing saga is financial, and it's brutal. With fines that could eclipse $30 million, Klatt argues the NCAA has quietly delivered a blow that could be more severe than most fans and pundits realize. "If we talk about this from a pro perspective, as the money grows in college football and we get into revenue sharing, what's the most penalizing thing that you can do to a program that affects them right now? Take away revenue," Klatt said on his podcast, "The Joel Klatt Show." "So, the fine of upwards of up to $30 million isn't a small fine. Some will say it's the price of doing business, and they'd pay it every year if it guaranteed us a national championship. "That's fine, but, in the era of revenue sharing, I will tell you that every athletic director across the country — whether it's Big Ten or SEC athletic directors — all they talk about is revenue. All they talk about is finding money, because they don't feel like they have enough to keep the entire program up to speed." Thanks to the approval of the House v. NCAA settlement in June, schools will now be able to pay student-athletes directly through a revenue-sharing model. But there is an annual cap that each school has to deal with. For the 2025-26 academic year, schools have a limit of roughly $20.5 million to pay all of their student-athletes. ADVERTISEMENT "They're going to have to share the $20.5 million and still find all this money for all of their other sports," Klatt explained. "So, when you fine a school like Michigan $30 million, it's not small. I feel like that was the right way to go for them. The other thing you can do is hinder their way to build a roster. That's how they do it in the NFL. They've got to do some convoluted things on when and how you can recruit." As Klatt mentioned, the NCAA's penalties against Michigan also included recruiting restrictions. Head coach Sherrone Moore's program will have a 25% reduction in football official visits during the 2025-26 season and a 14-week prohibition on recruiting communications during the four-year probation period. However, it doesn't appear that Michigan has felt the wrath of the recruiting restrictions yet. Four days after the penalties came down, the Wolverines were able to land five-star recruit Savion Hiter, who is widely viewed as one of the top running backs in the 2026 recruiting class. While the fines could hurt Michigan down the line, the Wolverines were also hit with penalties when the news of the scandal first broke, as the Big Ten suspended then-Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh three games on the eve of its matchup against Penn State in November 2023. While Michigan defeated Penn State and Ohio State without Harbaugh, Klatt believes that the suspension could've derailed the team's national championship season. "Harbaugh flew with the team to Penn State and was at the hotel, but he was suspended for the game," Klatt said. "That's a lot of distraction when you're about to play on the road against a top-10 opponent. That's not nothing. For some people, this punishment is not going to go far enough. That's fine. I totally understand that. I think if you're Michigan, you look at this and even think, 'Man, I think we got off pretty easy.' But let's not forget that for the most difficult and important games of that season, they had to play without their head coach, Jim Harbaugh. "Harbaugh was not there for the Ohio State game, and that was a game between two undefeateds and the loser was not going to the playoff. The loser was not going to the Big Ten Championship Game. So, if Michigan loses that game, the national championship doesn't happen. I think from Michigan's side, they would've said that's because 'our head coach wasn't there.'" Harbaugh was also penalized for his role in the sign-stealing scandal by the NCAA, receiving a 10-year show-cause on top of the four-year show-cause he's already serving due to previous recruiting violations. Connor Stalions, the mastermind behind the scandal, received an eight-year show-cause penalty. Klatt noted that Harbaugh is "never coming back" to Michigan, as he's now the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers. Klatt also thought the suspension the NCAA gave Moore wasn't significant as it tagged on one game to the already self-imposed two-game suspension he was set to serve for the 2025 season. In total, Moore will miss Michigan's third and fourth games this season, while also missing Michigan's season-opener against Western Michigan in 2026. Sherrone Moore will be suspended for three total games as a result of the sign-stealing scandal. (Photo by) "I immediately thought, 'Oh, they gave him the Oklahoma game as well,'" Klatt said, referring to Michigan's Week 2 matchup against Oklahoma. "The NCAA grew a spine and said that's not enough. So, you're also going to sit out the Oklahoma game, which would hurt them as a team and him personally, because he went to Oklahoma. … What are we doing?" Still, while some might scoff at the idea of a fine being a harsh punishment, Klatt argued that it was the best the NCAA could do – and it might be pretty effective. "I said when the investigation finishes and pending what they actually did, if rules were broken, then they should be punished. So, good. I'm glad that they're getting punished because clearly rules were broken," Klatt said. "Was the punishment fair? Did the punishment fit the crime? … I never want to penalize a current player who had nothing to do with this for some actions of some people who aren't in the program anymore." Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily . What did you think of this story? share
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Auburn will win at least NINE games + Nine other BOLD college football predictions
On today's Andy & Ari On3, Andy provides his 10 boldest predictions before the season. How dominant will Penn State be this season? Is Alabama the frontrunner to win the SEC? What will Utah do in the Big 12? All these questions answered, but first, we head down to Auburn to evaluate Hugh Freeze and the Tigers on the plains. 0:00 Previewing today's episode 0:38 BetMGM 2:14 Intro: CFP Strength of Schedule changes 11:02 Bold Predictions: Auburn will win 9 games 21:15 Notre Dame will receive a bye in the CFP 30:31 James Franklin winning a top-5 game 33:57 Alabama, winners of the SEC? 41:52 Ohio State will FINALLY beat Michigan 55:55 Utah will compete for the Big 12 Title 58:20 UNC Win total: Under 7.5 games 1:01:32 Tulane, G5 Playoff Spot 1:03:33 Iowa's FUN offense? 1:05:52 Arch Manning at Texas 1:09:22 Re-visiting Matthew Golden at the draft 1:13:28 Conclusion Will Notre Dame be a recipient of a top-4 seed and a bye in the CFP? Andy seems to think so. With CJ Carr beginning the year at QB in Miami Gardens, the Fighting Irish are in a prime position to continue its winning ways. At Penn State, the expectations are sky high, and Andy boldly predicts that the Nittany Lions and James Franklin will meet those expectations this season. Do you think PSU is poised for a run? It's never too early to discuss The Game. Watch as Andy explains why the Buckeyes will turn recent history around this season against Michigan. List of Andy's 10 boldest predictions here: Our show is presented by BetMGM! See for Terms. 21+ only. US promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel.
