Week of 4/25: College Baseball Projections

Boyd's World has new pseudo-RPIs up, so I thought that based on that (and my opinions) I'd make my first predictions for the field of this year's College World Series:

1. Texas
2. Tulane
3. Florida
4. Baylor
5. Oregon State
6. Miami
7. Louisana-Lafayette
8. Arizona State

The first two spots are gimmies. Those would have to be pretty much consensus picks. Florida seems to be for real too - although I'm always skeptical of the Gators.

Baylor and Oregon State aren't traditional powers, but they're having great years this year and I think they'll hold up.

While I don't think this is Miami's strongest team by any means, they seem to be holding up well in the rankings and ratings. That will probably buy the Canes a national seed, which likely means hosting a regional and a super regional. That could be what propels the Canes to Omaha this year, as my hopes for them are much dimmer if they have to go on the road.

I don't know much about Louisana-Lafayette, but I keep reading good things about them. So they're my darkhorse.

For the 8th team, I really struggled. This could have been any one of a number of teams. I picked traditional power Arizona State, but I'm not sold on it. You could easily make cases for at least three ACC schools (North Carolina, Georgia Tech, and NC State) and you could probably put Clemson into that fold as well. From the SEC, Mississippi, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, or LSU could also take a berth.

Barring injury or something else unexpected, Texas and Tulane are virtual Omaha locks. The last six spots though are up for grabs, and there are twenty clubs with legitimate shots at grabbing them.

Thoughts?