Unlike its counterparts in football and basketball, college baseball does not have a universally accepted top 25 like the AP Poll. Instead, there are five major polls that schools and publications reference on various occasions, which can create confusion among fans.
To help with that, HawgBeat - the Arkansas site in the Rivals network - will create a single poll that combines the rankings by Baseball America, D1Baseball, Perfect Game, the NCBWA and the USA Today Coaches Poll.
(NOTE: Collegiate Baseball used to be included, but was removed due to extreme inconsistencies.)
Giving 25 points to the No. 1 team in each poll, 24 points to No. 2, all the way down to 1 point to No. 25, the teams with the 25 highest point totals are listed below, with the "receiving votes" section including each team that was in the top 25 of at least one poll but not within the highest 25.
The "high/low" column features each team's highest and lowest ranking of the week.
April 19 Poll Notes
~Rivals finally made the decision to exclude the Collegiate Baseball rankings from the Composite Poll due to the extreme inconsistent nature of the poll. For example, this week, Collegiate Baseball had four teams inside its top 25 that weren't ranked in any other poll, including one at No. 13. It also doesn't have three teams ranked between No. 7 and No. 17 in every other poll, not to mention multiple teams severely under- or over-ranked compared to the other five polls.
~For the fourth straight week, Tennessee is the unanimous No. 1 team. The Volunteers did drop a midweek game to Tennessee Tech and lost their first game to Alabama, but bounced back to win the next two games - and the series - against the Crimson Tide.
~There is nearly a unanimous top six. In addition to Tennessee being No. 1 in every poll, Oregon State, Oklahoma State and Arkansas are ranked in the top four of every poll. Miami (Fla.) is in the top six of each poll and Southern Miss is top six in all but one (No. 7 in Baseball America).
~Three teams remained in the top 25 despite double-digit movement. The biggest jump was by Virginia Tech, which moved up 13 spots to No. 11 after winning a series against previous No. 2 Miami (Fla.). Stanford jumped up 11 spots to No. 7 after winning a series at previous No. 11 UCLA. The other team went the other way, as LSU fell 11 spots to No. 25 after being swept at previous No. 6 Arkansas.
~With Florida dropping out and Florida State moving in, the SEC and ACC are once again tied with six teams apiece in the Composite Poll. The Pac-12 and Big 12 have four top-25 teams apiece, while the Big East, Big Ten, C-USA, Sun Belt and WCC each have one.
~Dropped out: Arizona (16), Dallas Baptist (19), Florida (23)
~Moved in: TCU (18), Florida State (21), Maryland (23)
