The 2025 College Baseball Crystal Ball
A blog by Will, Inspired by Ben Upton and 11.7's "The Script"
If you don’t follow me on Twitter (please do, @OverdueSports), you may not know how near and dear to my heart I hold College Baseball, aka The Greatest Show on Dirt. With just a few sleeps until opening day, I figured I’d throw my two cents into the world on how I think this season will go. Obviously, this will make me look like a moron in six months, but that’s half the fun of this. I’ll take a look into my crystal ball and predict things from conference winners, cinderella stories, the Omaha 8, and the eventual National Champion. This blog is inspired by a friend of the program, Ben Upton, over at 11.7 (follow him and them for some of the best college baseball content out there) and his “The Script” blog, which he writes yearly.
If you weren’t already aware, 2025 happens to fall into the pattern of every 8th year, and the National Champion is a mid-major school. Before you jump on me for my math (I went to school for journalism, not numbers), this excludes the 2020 canceled season.
2008: Fresno State
2016: Coastal Carolina
2025: ???????
Now, I’m not superstitious, but I am a little-status, and I wholeheartedly believe there are a handful of small schools capable of making a lot of noise this year and can keep this newfound trend going. Here are eight things that are going to happen in the 2025 season (in honor of our Omaha 8).
1. Texas A&M Misses the CWS
‘But Will, why say this when the Aggies are involved in every one of your futures cards??’
Because in the back of my head, there’s a little voice of doubt that tells me the expectations in College Station are too high, and first-year coach Michael Earley just can’t get his revenge from 2024. Do I fully believe in this one? Not necessarily, but I’m a sucker for a good storyline, and the Aggies missing Omaha might be an even better story than them taking home the title.
2. Dallas Baptist Wins the Natty
Per the aforementioned trend, and the chance that A&M doesn’t get it done, Dallas Baptist may just be the club to get it done. With tons of returning talent in guys like C Grant Jay, RHP James Ellwanger, IF Chayton Krauss, and RHP Jerrod Jenkins, paired with a veteran coaching staff featuring Dan Heefner as the Skipper, the Patriots are tied for 3rd in the country for most wins/season since 2015 (43).
This high-powered offense will shine in Omaha and become America’s team; they’re nicknamed Dallas Bombers University for a reason.
3. Big 10 Gains National Respect
There’s nobody more disrespectful to the Big 10 than SEC fan-boys. Not all of it is unwarranted; cold weather states tend to lack in baseball due to the delay in being able to play outside, but a power shift is coming, and 2025 might just be the intro to it. Oregon plays a crucial role in this, holding the preseason rank of 13, and being a legitimate CWS threat. It goes way deeper in 2025; both Indiana & Nebraska start their 2025 campaigns in the Top 25 (23,24), and both should be national tournament teams. Penn St is going to be the runaway train nobody saw coming, and ‘juggernauts’ better cross their fingers they don’t see Mike Gambino’s Nittany Lions as a 3-4 Seed in their regional. Both USC and UCLA, who are now in the Big 10, hold some legitimate firepower and could sneak into the National Tournament.
This is potentially a five-bid league, and more in the coming years; respect the Mid-West.
4. ACC Gets More CWS Teams Than SEC
I swear this is not an anti-SEC propaganda blog. Most of my future tickets involve SEC teams, but the ACC is unbelievably high-powered and well-balanced from top to bottom. I see Virginia, North Carolina, Duke, Clemson, and Florida State as legitimate contenders. If my previous predictions come to life, we’re looking at this one following suit.
POTENTIAL OMAHA 8:
Virginia, North Carolina, Clemson, Dallas Baptist, TCU, Oregon St, Arkansas, Georgia
5. Nolan Schubart Wins Golden Spikes
Read this. Enough said.
6. Tulane Three-Peats the AAC
Nothing like a squad that returns a ton of talent in a conference that got objectively weaker to defend their title. I got to sit down with Head Skipper Jay Uhlman on his outlook for the 2025 season; “We have a hungry group of newcomers that have blended quickly with our battle-tested group of back-to-back AAC champions. The guys are motivated to continue the upward trajectory of the past two seasons and put their own stamp on the standards of the program. It has been a rewarding process for us this fall and we want to stay focused on that process to give us the best chance to get what we want.”
7. Hawai’i Wins the Big West
All of the attention on the West Coast falls on potential 1.01 in 2025 MLB Draft Tyler Bremner and the UCSB Gauchos, but the Rainbow Warriors are coming ready to rumble in 2025. After going 37-16 last year, Rich Hill’s ballclub should take another step in the right direction, and with one of the more high-powered lineups in the Big West, may be able to out-slug the pitching heavy conference. I love seeing new teams in the fold, and I believe the Bows’ time is approaching.
8. Will Takes on Omaha
While I already have my ticket booked to Omaha for what will be five days in my literal Heaven, I just need to put out there how excited I am to have boots on the ground in Omaha for the CWS for the first time in my life. And, of course, it’ll feel nice to see one of these go through the hoop once we hit June. It’s been a life-long dream of mine to cover baseball, and to do it on the biggest stage of my favorite sport literally feels like a dream. Content will go crazy that week, stay tuned.
Follow me on Twitter: https://x.com/OverdueSports
Listen to the podcast: