College baseball week in review: How are the former Pac-12 schools faring in their new leagues?

The seismic conference realignment that altered the college sports landscape finally hit college baseball this spring, with 10 former Pac-12 schools navigating new leagues in 2025. (Oregon State is playing as an independent, and Colorado doesn’t have a baseball team.)

It’s still early — we are only halfway through conference play in the first post-realignment season, and so many other factors are involved — but let’s take a look at how these programs are performing in their new homes.

It’s no surprise that Oregon and UCLA are enjoying success in the Big Ten. UCLA has struggled a bit in recent years, but this is still a very good program that has won at a high level over the past few decades. USC has been on an upward trajectory under Andy Stankiewicz and is having a solid first season in the Big Ten. Washington went through a significant roster overhaul under first-year coach Eddie Smith and has been better than expected in league play.

So far, the four schools have taken a combined nine road trips outside of the Pacific time zone — two each for Oregon, UCLA and Washington and three for USC — with a combined record of 17-10 in those 27 games.

There’s nothing too notable about the three new Big 12 teams. Arizona and Arizona State haven’t been the most consistent programs over the last decade, but they are both very good baseball schools that should compete for Regional berths on a regular basis.

Stanford, with four separate trips to the East Coast in 2025, was always going to be the most interesting case study. The Cardinal missed the NCAA Tournament last season after making three consecutive trips to the College World Series. Expectations were high in 2025, but how would they handle their new league and the travel that comes with it?

So far, not great. The Cardinal are 19-14 overall and 6-12 in the ACC after losing two of three at Clemson over the weekend. They opened league play with a 5-1 record — including a series win at North Carolina — but then lost 11 straight before salvaging Game 3 of the Clemson series on Sunday. Who knows whether the travel is playing a role, but this team is too talented to be struggling so much. Meanwhile, Cal has played three road series in the Eastern time zone, going a combined 2-7 in weekends at Duke, Louisville and Georgia Tech.

Oregon State, notably, opted not to follow Washington State to the Mountain West and is playing a national schedule that featured multi-team “classics” in the first three weeks of the season and also includes weekend series against San Diego, Cal Poly, Nebraska, UC Irvine, Oregon, Hawaii and Iowa.

Around the horn

Georgia outlasted Arkansas in the biggest series of the weekend, winning the decisive Game 3, 7-6, on a walk-off home run by catcher Henry Hunter in the bottom of the 12th inning. The Bulldogs won despite committing five errors and giving up a two-run lead in the top of the ninth on two solo home runs.

HENRY HUNTER WALK OFF BOMB IN THE 12TH 🔥

GEORGIA TAKES THE SERIES OVER ARKANSAS pic.twitter.com/p2SQ3DwpyN

— 11Point7 College Baseball (@11point7) April 13, 2025

It was a huge bounce back by Georgia, which was swept at Texas last weekend and lost Game 1 of this series 13-3 on Friday night. Now, after consecutive wins by the score of 7-6, Georgia is 32-6 overall and 10-5 in the SEC.

Arkansas, which had climbed to No. 1 in last week’s top 25, lost consecutive games for the first time this season. The Razorbacks, at 12-3, are in second place in the SEC, one game behind Texas.

And while the Hogs might have lost the series, their social media team deserves props for this post on X, sent on Sunday afternoon with The Masters taking place about 100 miles from Georgia’s campus.

Onto the second nine at Foley Field pic.twitter.com/zdHJ8mjxIk

— Arkansas Baseball (@RazorbackBSB) April 13, 2025

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Texas A&M’s midseason turnaround continued with a weekend sweep of South Carolina by a combined score of 40-19. The Aggies won Game 3 on a walk-off grand slam from Kaeden Kent — their second grand slam of an eight-run ninth inning.

From Texas A&M SID Kyle Stafford on the back-to-back grand slams: A&M is the 25th team in NCAA history to record two grand slams in one inning and third since at least 1990 to accomplish the feat in the ninth. The 10-run comeback is the largest in A&M history since at least 1974.

— Carter Karels (@CarterKarels) April 13, 2025

Texas A&M has won five straight SEC games and is 20-15 overall and 6-9 in the league. The remaining schedule is brutal — road trips to Arkansas, Texas and Georgia and home series against LSU and Missouri — but this team has played its way back into the postseason discussion.

South Carolina, meanwhile, is 20-17 overall and 2-13 in the SEC under first-year coach Paul Mainieri.

“I don’t use the word embarrassed very frequently,” Mainieri told Gamecock Central after Friday night’s 17-0 loss. “Tonight was embarrassing for us and for our school. I just can’t really put into words what happened tonight.”

South Carolina has had a losing SEC record only five times dating back to 1998 and has won fewer than 13 league games in that stretch only once (8-22 in 2019).

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On a related note, Missouri is 0-15 in the SEC at the midway point of the conference season. Since the league went to a 30-game schedule in 1995, the fewest number of wins in a season is five — by Vanderbilt in 2000 (5-24), Georgia in 2010 (5-23) and Alabama in 2017 (5-24-1).

Both South Carolina and Missouri are in jeopardy of setting a new record for futility. The Gamecocks and Tigers do not play each other this season.

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A few weeks ago, Arkansas’ first baseman Cam Koziel terrorized his former team, going 5-for-12 with three home runs in the Hogs’ sweep at Vanderbilt.

This past weekend, there were a few more examples of first-year transfers enjoying success against their former teams.

On Friday night, Tennessee junior lefthander Liam Doyle, who spent the 2024 season at Ole Miss, struck out 14 and allowed only three hits and two earned in 8 1/3 innings against the Rebels in Oxford.

On Sunday, first baseman Andrew Fischer went 2-for-4 with a home run in the Vols’ 10-8 series-clinching win. Fischer began his career at Duke but played the 2024 season at Ole Miss.

Around 300 miles to the southeast, Samuel Dutton threw six shutout innings on Friday night — significantly outdueling the more high-profile Kade Anderson — to lead Auburn to an 8-4 win over LSU. Dutton, an Alabama native, transferred to Auburn after playing three seasons at LSU.

Dutton’s performance set the tone for a huge weekend for Auburn, which swept LSU for the first time since 1988.

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TCU’s streak of missing the NCAA Tournament will very likely end at one season. The Horned Frogs are 28-9 overall and 11-4 in the Big 12 after sweeping Kansas, which entered the weekend in first place, in Fort Worth.

TCU is percentage points behind surging West Virginia, which has won 10 straight overall, including Big 12 series sweeps of Utah and Houston. The Mountaineers, under first-year coach Steve Sabins, are 30-4 overall and 10-3 in the league. Its nonconference schedule was soft (No. 257), but WVU’s RPI is strong (No. 22) thanks to the gaudy overall record.

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What’s the best-case scenario when teams riding losing streaks of 99 games and 42 games meet in a doubleheader? Obviously, a split — and that’s what happened on Tuesday afternoon in Teaneck, N.J.

Lehman College won the opener 7-6 to extend Yeshiva University’s losing streak to 100 games, but the Macabees bounced back in the second game, 9-5, to pick up their first win since May 27, 2022.

The Athletic’s Mark Puleo has much more on this epic clash between Division III schools.

And finally …

• As of Monday morning, nine of the top 12 teams in the RPI — including the top five — are from the SEC.

• Coastal Carolina’s RPI is up to No. 8 after a weekend sweep at Georgia State. The Chanticleers have a huge game on Tuesday at Wake Forest.

• Eastern Illinois outlasted SEMO 6-3 in 19 innings on Friday night in the longest game, by innings, in Ohio Valley Conference history. The EIU pitching staff threw 12 consecutive scoreless innings.

• St. John’s swept Xavier in a key Big East series. The Red Storm are 6-0 in the league, two games up on Villanova and four up on Xavier and UConn.

• Georgia Tech continues to roll. The Yellow Jackets have won six straight in the ACC after sweeping Cal in Atlanta. Tech is 29-7 overall and 14-4 in the league.

• WKU proved its series win at Dallas Baptist two weeks ago was no fluke. The Hilltoppers, who lead the nation in ERA (2.64), swept Liberty on the road, holding the Flames to a combined seven runs in three games. WKU is in first place in Conference USA at 9-3.

• North Carolina took advantage of a scheduling quirk that had the Tar Heels playing three consecutive series at home. They went 7-2 over that stretch, taking two of three from Miami and Duke and then sweeping Wake Forest this past weekend.

(Photo of Grayson Grinsell: Maria Lysaker / Imagn Images)

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