Nobody can argue that the OU baseball team’s opening two weeks was far from a disappointment.
The Sooners went 9-0 and outscored their opponents 119-37 despite the new bat’s effort of trying to deaden the ping. And all of the national polls have taken notice.
Baseball America has OU ranked third, and Collegiate Baseball put the squad at second in the nation.
While I agree the Sooners should be one of the top-ranked teams, I’m not completely sold they’re the No. 2 team in all the land.
Yes, perfect through nine games is impressive, but look at the quality of opponents OU has played.
William and Mary isn’t terrible but isn’t the team to make or break OU’s RPI. Arkansas-Pine Bluff gets the living snot beat out of it just about every year in Norman (note the reason why so many Sooners hold team and personal records against the Golden Lions), so those two shellackings weren’t t00 surprising. And Oakland, while not terrible, isn’t the most imposing force out there.
But maybe I’m being a little hard on the Soooners.
After all, they do have a perfect record and they have won every game on their schedule so far, which is something that should be recognized.
Maybe I’ll agree more with the ranking once OU ends its upcoming road trip.
It starts the trip tomorrow at 3 p.m. against the University of Texas at Arlington Broncos and then works its way to the West Coast. The Sooners will be playing in the San Diego Tournament against San Diego, California and San Diego State twice.
On the way back, OU will be taking the field against Arizona State, a fellow 2010 College World Series participant, for two games in the desert.
Needless to say, this road trip is a daunting task to go through before the start of conference play.
If the Sooners come out of this trip with an unblemished record or with just one or two losses, then I’ll believe they are the second best team out there. Right now, I have them at three or four, which is where I see the team being ranked at the end of the season.
Remember, the Sooners should be gunning for a top-eight ranking once the post season begins because the first-through-eighth-ranked teams are the national seeds and get to host a regional round and a super regional round, granted they don’t get eliminated in the round one.
But as I said earlier, OU deserves to be one of the highest ranked teams in the nation, so any and all OU baseball supporters should be proud of what head coach Sunny Golloway and the players have done thus far.
That’s my two cents. What’s yours?
