2011 USA TODAY/ESPN Top 25 Baseball Coaches’ Preseason Poll

Yet another poll released, and yet a new number 1 team.  UCLA earns the top honors in he USA TODAY/ESPN Top 25 baseball coaches’ poll with 9 first place votes.  See who else made the cut below.


Rank – School – 2010 record – Points - Final 2010 Rank – First Place Votes
1. UCLA (51-17) 741 2 9
2. TCU (54-14) 728 3 9
3. Florida (47-17) 709 8 7
4. Vanderbilt (46-20) 593 13 1
5. Clemson (45-25) 592 4 0
6. Oklahoma (50-18) 587 5 0
7. Texas (50-13) 577 9 0
8. South Carolina (54-16) 564 1 5
9. Cal State Fullerton (46-18) 449 12 0
10. Oregon (40-24) 402 not ranked 0
11. Florida State (48-20) 401 6 0
12. Arizona State (52-10) 372 7 0
13. Texas A&M (43-21-1) 371 21 0
14. Virginia (51-14) 369 10 0
15. LSU (41-22) 278 25 0
16. Stanford (31-25) 277 not ranked 0
17. Rice (40-23) 261 20 0
18. Miami (Fla.) (43-20) 249 15 0
19. Georgia Tech (47-15) 214 17 0
20. Coastal Carolina (55-10) 210 11 0
21. Louisville (50-14) 178 16 0
22. Connecticut (48-16) 156 23 0
23. Auburn (43-21) 128 19 0
24. Arkansas (43-21) 113 14 0
25. Arizona (34-24) 110 not ranked 0

Others receiving votes (with 2010 records): UC-Irvine (39-21) 92; Alabama (42-25) 75; Wichita State (41-19) 54; North Carolina (38-22) 31; Mississippi (39-24) 28; San Diego (37-22) 27; College of Charleston (44-19) 24; St. John‘s (43-20) 17; Baylor (36-24) 14; Fresno State (38-25) 14; Washington State (37-22) 14; Oregon State (32-24) 11; Virginia Tech (40-22) 9; Tulane (32-24) 8; California (29-25) 5; Kansas State (37-22) 5; Pittsburgh (38-18) 5; Kent State (39-25) 3; Central Florida (33-22) 2; Florida Atlantic (37-24) 2; Southern Mississippi (36-24) 2; Hawaii (35-28) 1; Liberty (42-19) 1; Minnesota (32-30) 1; North Carolina State (38-24) 1.

The USA TODAY/ESPN Board of Coaches is made up of 31 coaches at Division I institutions. All are members of the American Baseball Coaches Association. The board for the 2011 season: Terry Alexander, Jacksonville; John Anderson, Minnesota; Ed Blankmeyer, St. John’s; Rob Cooper, Wright State; Sherman Corbett, Texas-San Antonio; Tim Corbin, Vanderbilt; Greg DiCenzo, Holy Cross; David Eldredge, Southern Utah; Mike Gaski, North Carolina-Greensboro; Nino Giarratano, San Francisco; Gary Gilmore, Coastal Carolina; Keith Guttin, Missouri State; Danny Hall, Georgia Tech; Daniel Heefner, Dallas Baptist; Loren Hibbs, Charlotte; Charlie Hickey, Central Connecticut State; George Horton, Oregon; Steve Jaksa, Central Michigan; Omar Johnson, Jackson State; Rick Jones, Tulane; Steve Kittrell, South Alabama; Kevin Leighton, Manhattan; Gary McClure, Austin Peay; Mervyl Melendez, Bethune-Cookman; Gary Powers, Nevada; Mark Scalf, North Carolina-Wilmington; Jim Schlossnagle, TCU; Matt Senk, Stony Brook; Doug Smith, UC-Riverside; Steve Smith, Baylor; Bob Whalen, Dartmouth.

About Mark Rafferty

Mark Rafferty is a 2007 Arizona State graduate where he majored in Justice Studies. During his collegiate days, he founded PitchForkNation.com which covers all Sun Devils sports. He joined College Baseball Daily during the 2007 postseason when he covered the Cal-State Fullerton Regional. He has covered multiple NCAA Regionals and the College World Series. You may contact Mark by email at Mark at collegebaseballdaily.com and follow him on Twitter @MarkRaff.