College | Rankings | 1/11/2017

2017 Preseason College Top 25

Patrick Ebert Mike Rooney Jheremy Brown

Photo: TCU Athletics

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Preseason All-American Team | 2017 College Baseball Preview Index

Welcome to the first Top 25 team rankings for the 2017 college baseball season and thanks to our friends at Rawlings for presenting our 2017 college baseball content. Listed below are the Top 25 teams, a list assembled by Perfect Game's Patrick Ebert, Mike Rooney and Jheremy Brown.

For the third year in a row the No. 1 team was an absolute unanimous vote among the Perfect Game staff with Texas Christian getting the nod to open the 2017 season in the top spot. With five Preseason All-Americans (Luken Baker, Elliott Barzilli, Durbin Feltman, Brian Howard and Evan Skoug), 22 players that returned from last year's College World Series squad and another strong recruiting class, the Horned Frogs are poised for a huge season as they look to return to Omaha for the fourth consecutive year.

Jeff Dahn will have a feature on Head Coach Jim Schlossnagle and his Horned Frogs on Thursday.

The four teams ranked after TCU were almost as unanimously agreed upon, even if the order varied from one staff member to the next. We do recognize that having seven teams (No. 7 Oregon State, No. 12 North Carolina, No. 16 Stanford, No. 17 Texas, No. 20 Houston, No. 22 Cal Poly, No. 23 Maryland) to open the year in the Top 25 that did not make last year's postseason may seem odd but we are confident each of those seven programs enjoys significantly better outcomes during the 2017 season. Considering that half of the field in Omaha in 2014 (TCU, Texas, Texas Tech and UC Irvine) didn't make the postseason the season before, it certainly isn't a stretch to imagine so many dramatic turnaround seasons.

We will make more sense of those decisions next Tuesday (Jan. 17) when we will follow up the Top 25 ranking with detailed capsules of each of the 25 teams. The day after that (Wed., Jan. 18) we will provide the teams ranked 26-40 along with a brief synopsis of each program.

Breakdown by conference:

SEC: 5 teams (Louisiana State, Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, Vanderbilt)
ACC: 5 teams (Florida State, Louisville, North Carolina, NC State, Clemson)
Pac-12: 4 teams (Oregon State, Stanford, Washington, Arizona)
Big 12: 3 teams (Texas Christian, Oklahoma State, Texas)
American Athletic: 2 teams (East Carolina, Houston)
Sun Belt: 2 teams (Louisiana, Coastal Carolina)
Big West: 2 teams (Cal State Fullerton, Cal Poly)
Conference USA: 1 team (Rice)
Big Ten: 1 team (Maryland)

Similar to past years we will update the Top 25 team rankings every Monday morning during the regular season. Stay tuned to Perfect Game and be sure to Like Perfect Game's College Baseball page on Facebook and follow PG on Twitter for all of the latest information:

@PGCollegeBall | @PGPatrickEbert | @JBrownPG | @Mike_Rooney

Rk	Team	'16 Record	'16 Rk	2016 Finish
1	Texas Christian	49-18	3	College World Series
2	Louisiana State	45-21	12	Baton Rouge Super Regional
3	Florida State	41-22	17	Gainesville Super Regional
4	Florida	52-16	6	College World Series
5	South Carolina	46-18	13	Columbia Super Regional
6	Louisville	50-14	11	Louisville Super Regional
7	Oregon State	35-19	NR	Did not make postseason
8	Mississippi	43-19	15	Oxford Regional
9	Vanderbilt	43-19	16	Nashville Regional
10	East Carolina	38-23-1	18	Lubbock Super Regional
11	Oklahoma State	43-22	4	College World Series
12	North Carolina	34-21	NR	Did not make postseason
13	Louisiana	43-21	22	Lafayette Regional
14	NC State	38-22	24	Raleigh Regional
15	Cal State Fullerton	36-23	NR	Starkville Regional
16	Stanford	31-23	NR	Did not make postseason
17	Texas	25-32	NR	Did not make postseason
18	Washington	33-23	NR	Nashville Regional
19	Clemson	44-20	14	Clemson Regional
20	Houston	36-23	NR	Did not make postseason
21	Rice	38-24	NR	Baton Rouge Regional
22	Cal Poly	32-25	NR	Did not make postseason
23	Maryland	30-27	NR	Did not make postseason
24	Coastal Carolina	55-17	1	CWS Champion
25	Arizona	49-24	2	CWS Runner-up