The field to set, but the road to Omaha was a bit bumpier for some than others.

Heck, for some, roads were still under construction on opening day.

Nevertheless, 4 unseeded underdogs clawed their way to the College World Series.

Here are 8 of the biggest surprises about the 2022 CWS field.

1. Coach Schloss & The Transfers …

Can you imagine Jimbo Fisher taking in 11 transfers and reaching the College Football Playoff? Oh, the outrage.

But it’s baseball. So transfers — historically as much a part of the game as cup-adjusting — are all but ignored by the masses.

It’s not surprising that Texas A&M first-year coach Jim Schlossnagle used the portal to rebuild his new roster. The Aggies have 11 transfers, including several of their best players (Jack Moss, Dylan Rock, Micah Davis, etc.). It’s not even surprising that Schlossnagle is back in Omaha. He took TCU 5 times before he “transferred” to Texas A&M.

What is surprising is how perfectly and quickly the combination of all of these new pieces fell into place on the first try.

2. Did you see the SEC preseason predictions?

Let’s just say SEC coaches are better at managing games than making predictions.

They picked Tennessee to finish 4th — in the SEC East, without a single vote to win the division. The Vols didn’t make it to Omaha, but they had arguably the greatest regular season in SEC history.

They picked Texas A&M to finish 6th — in the SEC West.

They picked Auburn to finish 7th — in the SEC West.

Now, the Aggies and Tigers could meet in the CWS finals.

3. Hispanic Titanic vs. The Bigger Hurt

Who you got?

Texas slugger Ivan Melendez or Auburn’s Sonny DiChiara?

You literally cannot miss either guy.

Melendez, the Hispanic Titanic, leads college baseball with 32 home runs. He is listed at 6-3, 225. Like DiChiara, Melendez is a transfer. He played 2 years of JUCO ball before arriving in Austin last season. He was good in 2021 (first-team All-Big 12 DH after hitting .319 with 13 homers), but nobody saw this historic season coming.

He not only crushed the program record for home runs in a season, he broke Kris Bryant’s Division I record in the BBCOR era (2011-present).

DiChiara, The Bigger Hurt, is generously listed at 6-1, 263. He transferred from Samford. If you saw him walking through Toomer’s Corner, you’d swear he was one of Bryan Harsin’s offensive linemen — not one of college baseball’s best hitters.

DiChiara arrives at the CWS with 22 home runs — 1 shy of matching Hunter Morris’ program record of 23, set in 2010. That means DiChiara already has exceeded the original Big Hurt’s best seasons. Frank Thomas set the program record with 21 homers in 1987 and held the mark for 13 seasons.

Texas and Auburn are in opposite brackets. The only way they can meet is in the CWS finals. The Hispanic Titanic vs. The Bigger Hurt is the heavyweight title fight the world needs.

4. The SEC represents half* of the CWS field

Four* SEC teams are headed to Omaha.

This is the 5th consecutive time that the SEC has sent at least 3 teams to Omaha. It’s the 2nd time in that stretch that it has produced half of the field.

But wait! There’s more!

If you count already-admitted SEC members Texas and Oklahoma, the number grows to 6. This is the new, soon-to-be reality facing every other conference in America.

The SEC already was, by far, the best baseball conference in the country. Just like it’s the best football conference in the country. Pick your metaphor: Adding Texas and Oklahoma is like throwing a go route up 30 in the 4th quarter or stealing 3rd base up 8 in the 7th.

It’s unnecessary roughness.

It’s also the reason Greg Sankey can’t stop smiling.

5. Are the Irish really an underdog?

Four unseeded teams made it to Omaha: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Ole Miss and Notre Dame.

Here’s the thing about the Irish: Baseball America ranked them No. 4 in the country in their preseason poll. (BA had Texas at No. 1.)

Nobody — except media outlets like Baseball America — pays attention to northern baseball. And it certainly didn’t help the Irish’s reputation when they were swept at Louisville in mid-March. Subsequent series losses to Duke and Miami reinforced the perception that the Irish beat up on a weak nonconference schedule but weren’t a legitimate postseason threat.

Here’s a fun fact: The Irish are 5-1 in the NCAA Tournament. They swept the Statesboro Regional then outlasted Tennessee in Knoxville. Have they dominated? Not exactly. They’ve scored 2 more runs than they’ve allowed in those 6 games. They typically don’t hit the long ball — Knoxville was an outlier — but they do the little things well. That bodes well in a pitcher-friendly park like Charles Schwab Field.

6. The Legend of Tim Elko

Which is more impressive: The ‘stache? Or the swing?

It’s close. The ‘stache has its own Twitter account, but the swing is a big reason Ole Miss is in Omaha for just the 2nd time in program history.

Elko’s emergence isn’t completely surprising, but in blasting a single-season program-record 22 home runs in 2022, he matched his career total coming into the season.

Can Elko leave as Ole Miss’ career leader in homers, too? The Rebels would love that. He has 44 — 4 shy of Kyle Gordon’s mark set in 1984-87, peak hot-bat era.

7. Welcome back, OmaHogs …

Arkansas dominated college baseball in 2021. The entire season seemed like a walk-up song leading to a Hog-pile in the middle of the diamond in Omaha.

It didn’t happen. The No. 1 seeded Hogs lost a pair of 1-run games to visiting NC State in the Super Regionals.

It wasn’t quite No. 1 seed Virginia losing to No. 16 seed UMBC and then rebounding to win the NCAA Tournament the following year, but last season’s disappointment clearly has helped fuel this season’s sense of urgency to finish the deal.

Go figure that, almost exactly 1 year later, the Hogs entered the 9th inning trailing another ACC school by a run in the decisive game of the Super Regionals. This time, the Hogs responded, pushing across 2 runs to eliminate UNC and return to Omaha for the 4th time in the past 7 NCAA Tournaments.

“This is special because of the way it went down last year, honestly,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn told reporters afterward. “It was tough last year at this time. This is awesome.”

How could it not be? More than half of this year’s roster experienced the pain of 2021.

“We had a whole year to think about it. A lot of the players were on last year’s team this year,” Brady Slavens told reporters after driving in the winning run to advance. “That was basically the motivation, ‘we’re not going to lose this year. We’re going to give it everything we have.’

“All I could think about going up to the plate was last year’s heartbreak and wanting to do it for this year’s team and last year’s team, honestly, not being able to make it.”

8. A double play for Oklahoma?

No school has ever won the College World Series and Women’s College World Series in the same year.

Oklahoma completed the greatest season in college softball history by storming to the WCWS title earlier in June.

Now the Sooners’ baseball team takes its shot.

OU is in Omaha for the 11th time but first since 2010.

To say this run was unexpected is an understatement. The Sooners went 27-28 last season. Big 12 coaches picked them to finish 6th in the league this year.

They responded by winning 40 games for the first time 2013 and capturing their first Big 12 Tournament title since that season, too.

Peyton Graham won’t remind anybody of Jocelyn Alo, but he leads the Sooners with 20 home runs. That ties him for 6th all-time on the Sooners’ single-season list. And he’s the only Sooner to reach 20 since the turn of the century.