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Published Mar 3, 2020
HawgBeat Composite Poll: Tough week for SEC West
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Andrew Hutchinson  •  HawgBeat
Managing Editor
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@NWAHutch

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It was not a good weekend for most of the SEC West.

Arkansas, with a winless showing at the Shriners College Classic in Houston, was one of four teams in the division see a significant drop in its ranking in this week's HawgBeat Composite Poll, which combines the major college baseball polls.

After checking in at No. 4 last week thanks to their 7-0 start, the Razorbacks fell seven spots to No. 11. They are still a consensus top-15 team, though.

In its first update since the preseason, the USA Today Coaches Poll has Arkansas the highest at No. 10 (down five), followed closely by the NCBWA (No. 11, down nine). Its lowest ranking is No. 14 by Perfect Game (down nine).

The other three polls - Baseball America (down four), D1Baseball (down seven) and Collegiate Baseball (down 10) - each have the Razorbacks at No. 13.

Mississippi State (No. 6 to No. 12), LSU (No. 16 to No. 22) and Texas A&M (No. 17 to No. 23) each dropped six spots in the Composite Poll because of subpar weekends.

The Bulldogs lost a midweek game to previously winless Texas Southern and then lost two of three games at Long Beach State. The Tigers went 1-2 at the Shriners College Classic and the Aggies failed to win a game at the Frisco Classic.

Another SEC West team dropped one spot despite a perfect week, as Auburn fell from No. 18 to No. 19 after beating Alabama A&M twice and sweeping Wright State.

The other two teams in the division also had good weeks on the field and it impacted their ranking. Ole Miss moved up five spots to No. 9 after sweeping the LeClair Classic with wins over High Point, East Carolina and Indiana, while Alabama moved into the top 25 of the Collegiate Baseball and USA Today Coaches Polls after sweeping Harvard.

Here are a few other tidbits about this week's Composite Poll:

~Four teams moved into the top 25 - No. 20 TCU, No. 21 Long Beach State, No. 24 Texas and No. 25 Clemson.

~The four teams that dropped out to make room for those teams were East Carolina (previously No. 20), Georgia Tech (No. 21), North Carolina (No. 23) and Dallas Baptist (No. 24).

~The SEC still leads the way with 10 ranked teams, with an 11th (Alabama) in the receiving votes section. The ACC is second with six ranked teams (and two in the receiving votes section), followed by the Big 12 (4) and Pac-12 (2). The American, Big Ten and Big West each have one ranked team apiece.

~Florida is nearly a unanimous No. 1, taking the top spot in five of the six polls. However, Collegiate Baseball still has UCLA at No. 1 in its poll.

Here is a rundown of the entire updated composite poll, complete with each team's highest and lowest composite ranking of the 2020 season (SEC teams in bold, Arkansas opponents in italics)...

HawgBeat Composite Poll (March 3)
Receiving votes: Dallas Baptist (7), East Carolina (5), Alabama (4), Pepperdine (4), Tulane (3), Virginia (3), North Carolina (1)
RankingPointsChangeHigh/Low

1. Florida

149

--

1/9

2. Texas Tech

136

+1

2/3

3. Vanderbilt

134

-1

1/3

t-4. Georgia

132

+3

4/7

t-4. UCLA

132

+3

4/11

6. Louisville

126

-1

1/6

7. Miami (Fla.)

106

+1

1/9

8. Arizona State

99

+2

6/11

9. Ole Miss

97

+5

9/25

10. N.C. State

96

+3

10/16

11. Arkansas

82

-7

4/11

12. Miss. State

72

-6

6/12

13. Florida State

71

-2

11/14

t-14. Duke

70

+1

14/17

t-14. Michigan

70

-2

6/14

16. Oklahoma

64

+3

16/23

17. Tennessee

58

+8

17/NR

18. UCF

55

+4

18/NR

19. Auburn

48

-1

10/19

20. TCU

36

+7

20/RV

21. Long Beach State

34

+9

21/NR

22. LSU

23

-6

13/22

23. Texas A&M

13

-6

17/23

24. Texas

12

+2

24/RV

25. Clemson

8

N/A

25/NR