The 2023 College World Series has arrived.
Eight teams have survived the gauntlet of the regular season, conference tournaments and the NCAA Baseball Tournament to punch their tickets to Omaha. That includes three of the top five teams heading into the country, with No. 1 Wake Forest, No. 2 Florida and No. 5 LSU all reaching Nebraska to battle for the 2023 title.
When the NCAA Baseball Tournament begins, it's the start of a new season. What teams accomplished, though it can provide insight into what to expect out of teams, ultimately matters little. And now in the College World Series, all that matters is avoiding double elimination and surviving to stay in Omaha as long as possible.
With the College World Series officially set to begin on Friday, Sporting News is going through the field of eight and ranking how the teams shake up as the final stretch of the season begins. To come up with this list, we're looking at how we believe each team stacks up in terms of likelihood to win it all by looking at performances during the regular season, conference tournaments, regionals and super regionals.
Here's a look at how the rankings are shaping up heading into the College World Series.
MORE: 10 best MLB Draft prospects to watch in College World Series
College baseball rankings 2023
1. Wake Forest
There should be no debate as to the No. 1 team in the country. Wake Forest came into the field as the top seeded team, and has been nothing short of dominant since beginning its postseason run. While the Demon Deacons were eliminated in the semifinals of the single-elimination ACC tournament, they have steam-rolled opponents in the regionals and supers to the tune of a combined 75-16 margin in the five games.
There is no weakness in Wake Forest's game. The Demon Deacons have the lowest ERA in the country at 2.84 and the fifth-highest team OPS at .988. They have superstar talents like starter Rhett Lowder and corner infield sluggers Nick Kurtz and Brock Wilken.
A No. 1 overall seed hasn't won the College World Series since 1999, when Miami pulled it off. Wake Forest appears as poised to do that as any top seed to have reached Omaha.
D1baseball.com ranking: 1
2. LSU
Before Wake Forest ascended to the No. 1 spot, it was the Tigers that occupied the consensus top ranking in the sport. And it's not hard to understand why. LSU has a talented duo of hitters in Dylan Crews and Tommy White among Division I hitters, and the No. 1 pitching prospect in Paul Skenes. But injuries to the pitching staff and some mid-season struggles dropped the Tigers to No. 5 coming into the NCAA tournament.
The Tigers are fully back on track now. After dropping a pair in the SEC tournament, LSU has swept through the regionals and super regionals, including an impressive pair of games against No. 12 Kentucky, outscoring the Wildcats 22-3.
The pitching staff will be tested in the College World Series. The Tigers face Tennessee to begin play and will likely pitch Skenes in Game 1 before handing the ball to Ty Floyd, who made it only through 3.1 innings in the second game against Kentucky and who has a 4.50 ERA on the year. But if the Tigers live up to their potential, as they have so far in the tournament, they've shown they're as talented as any team in the country.
D1baseball.com ranking: 7
3. Florida
It might be a bit surprising to see the No. 2 Gators dropped to third in the rankings. But Florida has lacked the dominant tournament run that the Demon Deacons and Tigers have enjoyed. Florida dropped the second game of the Gainesville Regional to Texas Tech before working back through the elimination bracket to advance. It narrowly beat No. 15 South Carolina in the first game 5-4 before it had a more comfortable 4-0 victory against the Gamecocks to sweep the supers and advance to Omaha.
That is certainly not to say that anyone should be sleeping on Florida. Between Wyatt Langford and Jac Caglianone, the Gators have a powerful one-two punch in the lineup, and have plenty more depth behind those two with Josh Rivera, Cade Kurland, Luke Hyman and BT Riopelle all having OPSs above .900.
The most encouraging signs for the Gators might be the pitching. Hurston Waldrep has pitched 15 NCAA tournament innings with just eight hits, four walks and one run allowed while striking out 25. Caglianone, for his part, spun six shutout innings to open the regional against Florida A&M. The rotation has struggled with consistency this season, but if those recent performances are any indications of future outings, Florida will be tough to beat.
D1baseball.com ranking: 2
4. Virginia
Something got into the Virginia bats during the super regionals. After sweeping through the Charlottesville regional, the Cavaliers dropped the first game to Duke 5-4, but proceeded to outscore the Blue Devils 26-6 in the next two games to win the Charlottesville Super Regional and advance to the College World Series.
As impressive as the bats have been, however, the arms have arguably been more so. A pitching staff that ranks fourth nationally with a 3.77 ERA, the Cavaliers allowed just five total runs in the regional and turned around to hold Duke to just six across the final two games after giving up five in the first game.
Virginia might have dropped one game since the start of the NCAA Tournament, but it has been thoroughly dominant in all the others, with a total run margin of 55-15 in its six games. It swept East Carolina, a team some believed should be a regional host, and eliminated a red-hot Duke team. The Cavaliers will face their biggest test of the season in facing Florida to start the College World Series, but the pitching staff just might be enough to keep a dangerous Gator lineup quiet.
D1baseball.com ranking: 11
5. TCU
If this was all about the heat index, TCU would have a case to be as high as second. The Horned Frogs have gone 17-1 since May 6, including sweeps through the Big 12 tournament, the Fayetteville Regional and the Fort Worth Super Regional. Those sweeps meant beating three teams that were ranked in the top 16 nationally in Oklahoma State, Arkansas and Indiana State. The regionals, in particular, were a display of dominance, with the Horned Frogs winning the three games by a margin of 44-13.
But there are still reasons to have TCU down at No. 5. The Horned Frogs have the second-lowest RPI of any team left in the field, ahead of only Oral Roberts, and lack the power of some of the other teams. They also have the second-highest ERA among the eight at 4.73, ahead of only Stanford's 5.75.
The Horned Frogs are looking to Brayden Taylor to get back on track after he went hitless in the super regionals against Indiana State, particularly since he's by far their best power hitter. But if he starts to get it going alongside the red-hot Tre Richardson and Cole Fontenelle, this could be a TCU team poised to surprise some people.
D1baseball.com ranking: 17
6. Tennessee
The Volunteers had a dominant regionals performance in Clemson, beating the regional host in the second game of its tournament run and then finishing off Charlotte in the final in a commanding 9-2 victory. The inconsistencies of the Volunteers showed up in Hattiesburg for the super regionals, however, as Tennessee had to fight back after dropping the first game 5-3 to win the next two 8-4 and 5-0.
The biggest question for the Volunteers will be which Chase Dollander shows up. He allowed four runs across 4.1 innings in the win against Clemson and gave up another four to Southern Mississippi in the supers, though he gave Tennessee eight innings on the hill. Facing LSU in the first matchup, he'll have to be on his A-game against that standout lineup.
Tennessee's pitching staff has performed well throughout the postseason, as it has all season, but it also hasn't faced many offenses like the three in its bracket in Wake Forest, LSU and Stanford. The Volunteers will have their work cut out for them in a challenging bracket.
D1baseball.com ranking: 21
7. Stanford
It's been a bit of a rocky road for Stanford to make its third straight Omaha appearance. The Cardinal had to fight through the elimination bracket after losing the second game of the Stanford regional to Texas A&M, then lost the first game of the Stanford Super Regional to Texas and narrowly beat the Longhorns in the winner-take-all third game, when a routine fly ball was lost in the lights, allowing the walk-off run to score. Stanford might have been No. 8 coming in to the tournament, but it has certainly had its issues since the start of the tournament.
There are certainly still reasons for optimism. The bats have continued to look strong, as the team has averaged eight runs per game, right around its average of nearly nine runs per game during the regular season. The pitching behind Quinn Mathews has had plenty of issues, however, and he's had to carry a heavy load so far this postseason.
It doesn't get any harder than opening the College World Series against No. 1 Wake Forest. That will give the baseball world an early indication about whether Stanford was lucky to survive several scares along the way or if the Cardinal is just starting to hits its stride.
D1baseball.com ranking: 6
8. Oral Roberts
It has been a stunning run to the College World Series for Oral Roberts. The Golden Eagles are only the second regional four seed to reach Omaha after winning the Summit League regular season and conference tournament. Once at the Stillwater Regional, they only beat host No. 11 Oklahoma State in the first game and swept through Washington and Dallas Baptist to win all three games before taking two of three in the Eugene Regional.
There is some magic with this Oral Roberts team, but there are also some concerns. The Golden Eagles have allowed at least four runs in every game, though they've overcome that by scoring at least six in every game. The offense is legit, ranking 19th in the country in slugging percentage and 17th in on-base percentage. The pitching has also been impressive during the regular season, having posted a team ERA of 3.97, seventh-best in the country, though it has been tested against the powerful offenses in the regionals and super regionals.
So why eighth for Oral Roberts? The team lacks the star power of any of the other seven teams, and has played an easier schedule to reach this point than the others. No. 11 Oklahoma State was the only nationally seeded team the Golden Eagles have defeated on this run.
D1baseball.com ranking: Not ranked
