A 2025 College Baseball Guide for Dummies
Casting my college baseball fishing line to those who aren't already hooked.
As many of us Major League Baseball superfans patiently await the official Opening Day date of March 27th, I look forward to a date 41 days sooner. Friday, February 14th.
No, this isn’t because it’s Valentine’s Day, my second anniversary with my loving girlfriend, but because Division I college baseball season kicks off.
I can’t wait 62 days for the baseball season to come. That’s far too long.
This piece attempts to get more Skippers View eyeballs on college baseball. While it’s a bit more complex to follow, considering the vast number of teams, my goal is to simplify things and skim over what makes Division I NCAA baseball so special.
If you aren’t convinced after reading this, I guess you’ll be waiting for baseball longer than me—your loss.
The basics
If you don’t know a thing about DI baseball, this section is for you. Here is college baseball’s skeleton, boiled down to the bones:
There are roughly 300 DI baseball schools, made up of 31 conferences. However, this isn’t FBS football. Ever heard of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference? How about the Horizon League? That is exactly my point. It’s tough to keep track of all 31.
A typical DI baseball season consists of about 56 regular-season games per school, starting with non-conference clashes in February and continuing into conference play in March. Once conference play is over, conference playoffs begin to solidify spots in the regionals.
When it comes to making the postseason, DI baseball takes 64 teams, much like DI basketball. Schools can clinch a regional birth by winning their conference or having a terrific regular season to earn an at-large bid. Most at-large bids are scooped up by the power-four conferences — the SEC, BIG TEN, BIG 12, and ACC.
The top 16 schools in the country are lucky enough to host regionals come playoff time. Each region consists of four schools, seeded one-through-four double-elimination style. The regional champions move on to the Super Regional (view this as the “Sweet-16”).
The eight highest remaining seeds host the Super Regionals, a three-game series between two schools to decide the remaining eight spots in the College World Series.
Omaha, Nebraska, is the hub of college baseball, and Charles Schwab Field is the site for the double-elimination tournament. The king of DI baseball is crowned in June and dubbed College World Series Champions.
Other basics of the sport include the fact that metal bats are used, some stadiums hold zero fans while others hold 40,000+, NIL and the transfer portal have made recent impacts, and tons of future MLB players grace the dirt. Also, defense across the nation may be sloppy at times, but it makes for good baseball.
Some pointers
It’s 2025. If I’m going to convince people to buy into watching college baseball this specific season, I better cover some intriguing storylines entering the spring.
In my eyes, there are one-to-two teams to beat ahead of every DI baseball rollercoaster: the defending National Champion, and the pre-season No. 1 team in the country. This year, the defending National Champions are the Tennessee Volunteers, and the pre-season No. 1 ranked squad is the Texas A&M Aggies.
These two schools just so happened to have met one another in last year’s Natty, with Tennesse coming out on top, two games to one.
D1baseball.com is a tremendous source to key in on, as they come out with rankings weekly. Here’s a look at the current pre-season top 25 ahead of Opening Day:
Most of the clubs on this list are from the power-four conferences. However, the occasional mid-major team falls into D1 Baseball’s top-25. In this case, Troy, UCSB, and DBU find themselves in the mix.
That’s the thing about DI baseball: mid-majors aren’t an afterthought. They can make some serious noise.
Last season, Evansville and UConn struck lightning in a bottle and made the Super Regionals, shocking thousands. Baseball is a beautiful thing, and both the Purple Aces and Huskies rode hot bats and arms to knock favorites off the totem pole.
Some of the historically best mid-majors in college baseball are Cal State Fullerton, Fresno State, Witchita State, and Coastal Carolina. The Chanticleers went as far as winning the National Championship not too long ago in 2016.
It’s never out of the realm of possibility to see mid-major madness.
Talent aplenty
“But Sam, all the good amateur players get drafted out of high school. Why would I watch a bunch of players who weren’t good enough to sign as 18-year-olds?”
Nine of the first 10 picks in the 2024 MLB Draft were college players. SEC baseball is so talent-filled it’s getting compared to the same level as Double-A baseball.
Once again, the 2025 college baseball season is stockpiled with insane anomalies on the diamond. First, Jace LaViolette, a Texas A&M outfielder, is mocked as high as No. 1 in the upcoming July Draft.
LaViolette has 50 HR, 141 RBI, and a whopping .683 SLG% in two seasons with the Aggies. While he may not be as great a prospect as Travis Bazzana or Paul Skenes in previous years, he is the centerpiece of the current team to beat in DI baseball. That makes for good TV.
A few other incredible players to look out for ahead of the 2025 NCAA baseball season are Cam Cannarella (Clemson OF), Tyler Bremner (UCSB RHP), Devin Taylor (Indiana OF), Jamie Arnold (Florida State LHP), Aiva Arquette (Oregon State SS), and Luke Stevenson (North Carolina C), to name a few.
Many of these players were either drafted in late rounds out of high school or simply just late bloomers. The loyalty to a prior college commitment, or hard work to earn a starting spot/make a team is already instilled within these players. They focus on balancing academics, social lives, and their craft to get to the top.
A unique triumph high schoolers who sign with MLB teams don’t have to deal with.
As someone who has a background of playing college baseball (albeit DIII), I can attest to the fact that those locker rooms are second families. The passion of 95% of the college baseball landscape is infused with friendships rather than a paycheck. That cannot be manufactured in pro ball.
It’s what makes the sport so intense.
To learn more names, I’ll provide the rest of D1 Baseball’s pre-season First-Team All-Americans:
The verdict
I’ll be honest, without ESPN+ or FLO Sports, it can be hard to access college baseball on a TV or laptop. One of the reasons why the sport isn’t as popular as college football or basketball is because of this.
Even without subscriptions to those platforms, it’s very possible to stay connected. Such as watching “Wheels” videos on YouTube for free or following these X accounts:
@D1baseball, @OverdueSports, @PeterGFlaherty, @BacksideGB, @11point7, @bigdonkey47, @OCBaseball814, @IsaacGroffman, @NoahB_77 and @CollegeBaseCNT
But I urge you, if you haven’t tuned into any DI baseball, as an MLB fan, you are missing out on quirky plays, kids playing for their baseball lives (with little to no money involved), traditions of students showering beer after Ole Miss home runs, and lots of energy.
Spring Training in MLB doesn’t begin until February 20th, so tuning into DI baseball opening day won’t even jab into that.
After all, a plethora of the players you see at the college level are future Major Leaguers. Might as well get familiar with them now.