Man, I’ve been following college baseball for a while now, and one thing that’s been bugging me lately is why Florida State University (FSU) hasn’t been ranked higher. I mean, they’ve been killing it on the field, so what gives? I decided to dig into this and see what I could find out.
First, I started by checking out their recent performance. It looked like they were on a serious winning streak! I saw that they were 10-0 when I first started looking. Later I found out they were 18-0 after an amazing week, and even had a 3-0 record in the ACC. That’s pretty darn impressive, right?
So, with those stats in mind, I headed over to see what the different polls were saying. I figured that would give me a better idea of where they stood. What I found was a bit of a mixed bag.
- D1Baseball, which I guess is a big deal, didn’t even have FSU in their top 25 at first. Not even a mention! But then, boom, they moved them all the way up to #12. That’s a huge jump!
- Baseball America seemed to be more on the FSU hype train. They initially had them at #21 and then bumped them up to #7.
- The USA Today Coaches Poll also had FSU moving up, but I didn’t catch their exact rankings, I just knew they were going up in rank.
- Perfect Game Poll put them in at #19 after they played in the First Pitch Invitational.
After seeing all that, I was even more confused. One poll doesn’t rank them, others have them in the top 20 or even top 10. What was going on? Also, I noticed that they were ranked as high as #16 after their series victory. Later I saw Baseball America had the Seminoles at #24, and the coaches poll had them at #25. Still, D1Baseball did not rank FSU, even though the Seminoles were 10-0 at that time.
I thought about the factors that could be affecting their ranking. One big thing I considered was the strength of their opponents. Maybe they hadn’t played enough top-tier teams yet? But, their record was still killer.
I also considered the possibility of regional bias in the polls. Maybe the voters were more familiar with other teams or conferences? I don’t know, it seemed weird.
After all this digging, I’m still not 100% sure why FSU’s ranking is all over the place. They’re clearly a talented team with a great record. Maybe they just need to keep winning and prove themselves against some tougher competition. It’s also possible that the polls will start to reflect their performance more consistently as the season goes on. One thing is for sure, I’ll be keeping an eye on FSU baseball and see how they do. It’s a bit of a head-scratcher, but that’s what makes college sports interesting, right?
