We're almost to the end of April, and discussions about RPI, national seeds, and even the SEC title are heating up for the Ags!

I've always loved the content bobinator and ColleyvilleAg06 bring to the Basketball Board as the stretch run towards March Madness takes place, and I wanted to try to bring something similar to the great folks over here on the Baseball Board.

I'm a huge nerd over this stuff, and try to build a mock bracket every week or so as a hobby. Would love your feedback because, after all, this is a discussion board! If the discussion ends up just being me talking to myself, so be it

***LAST UPDATED: 5/18***

SUMMARY: They did it. Against all odds and without their best pitcher, the Ags dug deep and took 2/3 from a desperate Mississippi State squad to notch their 6th winning weekend in SEC play, and grab third place in the SEC with an 18-11 overall mark. Last week, I said this result would earn us a top 8 seed, and I'm still about 95% confident this will be the case. I have the Ags slotted in as the 8th overall seed, and I think there's a little cushion between 8th and 9th.

The DSR remains strong for A&M (7th), and if softball is any indication of what baseball might do, that will matter a lot. Additionally, A&M's top-end wins dwarf Florida State's, and they have the head to head series win over Florida in Gainesville to give some more evidence over the Gators.

Southern Miss and Nebraska are wild cards, especially with SM's AD on the committee (h/t to Mr. Ackar for that nugget), but USM would need to have a much higher RPI to get the nod as a non-P4 team, and I think Nebraska would need to run through the Big Ten tournament to have a shot.

Also of note, since 2015 the third place SEC team has received a top 8 seed 8/10 times, with 2015 (thanks, Hyman) and 2022 being the exceptions. In both of those years, the SEC overall received just two top 8 seeds - that will not be an issue this year.

Wins in Hoover never hurt, and if the Ags could get a 19th SEC win, especially against someone like Auburn, that would make me 100% confident. Let's just do that and remove any doubt.

Texas A&M Snapshot:
39-13 (18-11, 3rd in SEC)
RPI: 11 (-1 from last week)
ELO: 7 (+1)
KPI: 10 (-1)
DSR: 7 (no change)
PEAR NET: 6 (+1)
SoS: 18 (+8)

Q1: 10-12
Q2: 9-0
Q3: 4-1
Q4: 16-0


Predicting the Field of 64:
Top 8 Seeds (Right to host until Omaha) - Conference auto-bids are noted
1. UCLA (Big Ten)
2. Georgia Tech (ACC)
3. Georgia (SEC)
4. Texas
5. North Carolina
6. Auburn
7. Alabama
8. Texas A&M

I think spots 1-7 on this list are locked up, those resumes are a tier above everyone below them. A&M is almost there, and I think they edge out the next rung down. More high quality series wins than FSU (three better than the 'Nole's best), H2H wins over Florida, tougher schedules and more high quality wins than USM or Nebraska.

Remaining Regional Hosts (9-16)
9. Florida
10. Florida State
11. Southern Miss (Sun Belt)
12. Nebraska
13. Mississippi State
14. West Virginia
15. Oregon State
16. Ole Miss

Seeds 9-13 were pretty straight forward for me. West Virginia is a DSR darling (9th), and that might lead them to be higher than where I have them. The last two spots were tricky, but I think the committee will show some grace to Oregon State given their circumstances, and Ole Miss, to me, trumps Oregon from a resume standpoint. That's probably my SEC bias though.

One Bid League Auto-bids
17. America East (Binghamton)
18. ASUN (North Florida)
19. A10 (Saint Joesph's)
20. Big East (Saint John's)
21. Coastal (Campbell)
22. Horizon (Wright State)
23. Yale (Ivy) - Congrats to the Bulldogs for being the first team to punch their ticket!
24. MAAC (Rider)
25. Missouri Valley (UIC)
26. Mountain West (San Diego State)
27. NEC (Long Island)
28. Ohio Valley (SIUE) *SEMO is RPI 38
29. Patriot (Bucknell)
30. Southland (Lamar)
31. SWAC (Bethune Cookman)
32. Summit (Oral Roberts)
33. WAC (Tarleton State)

Other Auto-bids (Champ is currently in top 55 of RPI, meaning at-large is possible)
34. American (UTSA, 53 RPI) *Bubble at large
35. Big 12 (Kansas, 21 RPI) *At-large lock
36. Big South (High Point, 41) *Bubble at large
37. Big West (UC Santa Barbara, 35) *In as at large today
38. CUSA (Jacksonville State, 28) *At-large lock
39. MAC (Miami (OH), 37) *Bubble at large
40. SoCon (Mercer, 26) *Bubble at large
41. West Coast (Gonzaga, 46) *Bubble at large

That leaves 23 additional at-large spots up for grabs!

2 Seeds (Grouped in pods of four to assign to hosts on a general s-curve)
42. Oregon (17)
(Kansas - 18)
43. Arkansas (19)
44. Wake Forest (20)

45. Coastal Carolina (21)
46. USC (22)
47. Cincinnati (23)
48. Tennessee (24)

(These four most likely to be sent to A&M on the s-curve, Oklahoma not eligible)
49. Oklahoma State (25)
50. Oklahoma (26)
51. UCF (27)
(Jacksonville State - 28)

52. Virginia (29)
53. Boston College (30)
54. Miami (FL) (31)
(UC Santa Barbara - 32)

At large 3 Seeds (The Bubble)
55. Arizona State
56. Missouri State
57. Liberty
58. Kentucky
59. TCU
60. Virginia Tech
61. Texas State
62. Louisiana
63. NC State
64. Michigan

***Bubble Bursts Here***

65.East Carolina
66. South Alabama
67. Kent Staet
68. Purdue
69. UAB
70. Southeast Missouri
71. Troy
72. Cal Baptist
73. Vanderbilt
74. Dallas Baptist
75. La Tech

For the visual learners:

Seed List:


Potential A&M Path to Omaha (If the season ended today)

Thank you for creating this thread!

Good info, Nice presentation. No subscription fee!

Good analysis. Thanks

That was the short way to explain the new process for the 2-seeds this year. Longer version:

The committee will seed teams 1-32 in order. Teams 17-32 (the 2-seeds in each regional) will be grouped into pods of four (17-20, 21-24, 25-28, 29-32). Those pods of four will be paired up with corresponding pods of four for the one-seeds (I.e. 29-32 with 1-4, 25-28 with 5-8, etc.) on an s-curve. It helps balance out the regionals more so than when they were purely geography based, but they have to leave themselves a little wiggle room to avoid multiple teams from the same conference being in a regional, and (probably) to cherry-pick some interesting matchups.

Clear as mud?

I really appreciate your information and really only have one observation. With your list of national seeds including 7 SEC teams (4 in 1-8 and 3 more in 9-16), you do not have a single SEC vs SEC matchup at a super regional, potentially allowing all 7 teams to make it to Omaha. I don't see any way that the committee will allow that. They have the opportunity to eliminate 3 SEC teams just by slating 1-16, which gives other conferences a better chance to keep some representation at Omaha.

I certainly don't question your lists based on results, talent, performance, etc, I just question the committee leaving the possibility of so many SEC teams making it to the CWS (I refuse to use MCWS) and cutting out regional interest from other fans in other areas. Unfortunate, but history shows that we won't see SEC vs SEC supers minimized.

And if you really want to nerd out on this with folks that have been doing so for a long time and have really good insight into the behind the scenes stuff, I highly recommend the NerdCast. It's among my absolute favorite content during this part of the season.

Week 12 Nerdcast: 2026 Field of 64 Projection + Bubble Breakdown https://t.co/TGAW5EPNdp

— D1Baseball (@d1baseball) April 28, 2026

D1 Nerd Cast is the best.

I try to beat their release each week so I can't cheat...

**Spoiler alert if you want to watch the D1 Video**

This week we ended up with the exact same top 8 and 9-16 (just in a slightly different order), 14/16 on the 2/3-seed line, and just two different at-large decisions. I had Michigan and Kentucky in, the D1 guys swapped them for Texas State and Vanderbilt (my first two teams out).

I love what those guys do!

I've been addicted to RPI and projections for as long as they've existed so live seeing this thread! Thank you OP!

None taken at all. They are what inspired me to try it for myself a few years back. Like I said, love what they do and how they do it!

Three more conference wins, in theory. But I don't want to find out what it looks like if we get there by going 1-2 in our last three series.

Ags are up to 4 in the RPI, 3 in the DSR, and held steady at 6 in the KPI after a hard-fought win over Tarleton.

Consider me someone who would like to see the Texans somewhere other than Olsen for a regional, that team will give whatever host draws them all kinds of fits.

Also, as others have mentioned, next week's game against Prairie View is the ultimate lose-lose situation. Currently a 10% chance of rain for next Tuesday, maybe we could leave the sprinklers on Monday night?

They probably don't have the arms to win a regional, but they could either beat you or force you to use high leverage arms on Friday. Either way, they throw off the plan and make it a lot more difficult than a typical four.