Rivals.com editor Kendall Rogers has announced his top five overall programs. He puts Oregon State in the top spot after Pat Casey has led the Beavers to two consecutive national championships. The Beavers are also one of the top recruiters in the nation so they should continue their dominance. He puts the Cal-State Fullerton Titans in the runner up spot with the success they have had with Augie Garrido, George Horton, and entering his first season Dave Serrano. The program should not see a difference at all since Serrano was able to build a CWS team at UC-Irvine. Texas takes the third place as Augie Garrido has made the Longhorns a national contender every season and continue to bring in great players. Rice head coach Wayne Graham is entering his 17th season in Houston as he has made the Owls a great pitching university. Kendall rates them in the fourth spot with North Carolina coming in at fifth. Mike Fox has brought the Tar Heels program back to the national stage with consecutive appearances in the CWS Championship series where they have lost both times to Oregon State. The Tar Heels had a great pitching team in 2006 but a great hitting team in 2007 so he is able to win with different types of teams. The full article from Kendall is available here.
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As much as I’m suspect of OSU in the top spot, Casey just brought in his top class ever. I honestly would have been more likely to go with Rice.
I don’t get OSU being in the number 1 spot after having two great years and a very good third year. OSU never was a power before the last three seasons which I find a little weird to have them in the top spot.
This list covers the last five years. In that time, OSU has more national titles than anyone, a better CWS record than anyone (with 3 appearances), arguably one of the most dominant CWS performances in history (last season), two Pac10 titles (and the Pac10 is never weak), and their overall record is comparable to anyone who plays in a difficult conference (so there goes Rice).
Move the list to 10 years, and OSU doesn’t even crack a top-10 list, though if last year was any indication, that was possibly because they were never selected to play in the tournament with a bubble team (a couple times since 1997, the Beavers had a nice record but nothing to show for it… though the team certainly wasn’t great for many of those years).
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