OMAHA, Neb. — The Southeastern Conference has five teams in the 2026 College World Series — the record for one league at a single CWS, which is in its 80th edition — and the past six national champions hail from the SEC.
That doesn’t mean it’s the same old, same old this year, not with Sun Belt Conference school Troy (38-30) and Big 12 member West Virginia (45-15) squaring off in Friday’s opener as first-time participants on college baseball’s biggest stage. North Carolina (50-12-1), the lone Atlantic Coast Conference representative, takes on SEC program Ole Miss (41-21) in that double-elimination bracket’s second game Friday at Charles Schwab Field Omaha.
Play in the other bracket, made up of four SEC teams, begins Saturday with Oklahoma (38-22) meeting Alabama (42-19) in the afternoon matchup before Georgia (51-12) faces Texas (45-13) at night.
SEC dominance in baseball dates to the 1990s, long before the professionalization of college sports with name, image and likeness opportunities and revenue sharing for student-athletes. A popular belief was that the start of NIL compensation in 2021 would make access to the CWS, always difficult for teams outside the power conferences, even more so for them.
And after Cal State Fullerton made it to Omaha in 2017, there wasn’t another program from a mid-major conference in the field of eight until Oral Roberts in 2023. Coastal Carolina and Murray State made it last year, and the former advanced through double-elimination play to reach the CWS finals before being swept by LSU in the best-of-three series.