SEC baseball update: Standings, takeaways after the 7th weekend of conference series
By Andrew Olson
Published:
The seventh weekend of SEC baseball action was light on sweeps, but high on thrills. With the 11th week of the 2026 college baseball season complete, we’re almost ready to close the book on April and enter the final month of the season. Alabama and Vanderbilt will play on April 30, but everyone else plays their next SEC game in May.
Now 21 games down with 9 to go, let’s take a look at the standings. Georgia is still occupying No. 1. Texas A&M and Texas are right behind, and the rainout of their Game 3 continues to be a quirk in the standings. For now, it’s Dawgs on top with 1 more win than the Aggies.
Here’s where everybody stands:
- Georgia — 15-6 SEC (34-11 overall)
- Texas A&M — 14-6 (33-8)
- Texas — 13-7 (32-9)
- Mississippi State — 13-8 (33-10)
- Auburn — 12-9 (30-13)
- Ole Miss — 11-10 (31-14)
- Oklahoma — 11-10 (29-14)
- Florida — 11-10 (29-16)
- Arkansas — 11-10 (29-16)
- Tennessee — 10-11 (29-15)
- Alabama — 10-11 (29-16)
- Vanderbilt — 10-11 (26-19)
- Kentucky — 9-12 (27-15)
- South Carolina — 7-14 (22-23)
- LSU — 6-15 (24-21)
- Mizzou — 4-17 (21-23)
Will the national championship be won by an SEC team again? Predict this year’s College World Series winner on Kalshi!
RPI via Warren Nolan (Sunday)
Top Takeaways of the Week
Here were the biggest storylines from a busy weekend:
Road rubber wins show why they’re the top teams
The very top of the SEC standings looks the same, with Georgia, Texas A&M and Texas taking care of business. It didn’t come easy, though, for any of those teams. There were plenty of chances for shakeups in the standings as the top 3 all entered Sunday needing to win rubber games on the road.
As expected, Georgia at Ole Miss lived up to the hype. The Bulldogs blew an 8-0 lead to lose 10-8 in the first game of a Saturday doubleheader. Game 2 of the series required 14 innings for UGA to notch a 9-7 win and even the series up. The Dawgs managed the series win with an impressive 5-1 victory in Sunday’s rubber match.
By going 2-1 on the weekend, Georgia held on to the top spot in the SEC standings. One slip, though, and Texas A&M is right there ready to take over.
The Aggies dropped the series opener at Florida, 9-2. Michael Earley’s squad proved resilient on the road, powering its way to 8-4 and 5-1 victories to win the series in Gainesville. It’s the fifth-straight SEC series win for A&M, the hottest team in the conference.
Vanderbilt has had a rough 2026, but the Longhorns knew wins weren’t going to come easy in Nashville. The rubber match couldn’t even be decided in 9 innings. There was plenty of drama in the 10th, as the Commodores had runners on 2nd and 3rd down by 1, but couldn’t get a knock to tie or walk it off. As such, it’s another series win for Texas, which remains in third place after going 2-1 in the battle of music-city teams.
LSU’s season summed up in one weekend
Technically, no team is eliminated from making the NCAA Tournament in April. For LSU, however, any postseason hopes feel like they were erased this weekend.
The Tigers entered the series 6-12 in SEC play with the No. 63 RPI, desperately needing to pick up conference wins. They absolutely could not afford a sweep.
For the third SEC series in a row, LSU was swept. This one will hurt even more than the others. The Bayou Begnals led in the 6th inning in all 3 games. In all 3 games, Mississippi State came back.
Jay Johnson’s team is now 6-15 in SEC play with the No. 64 RPI. As the defending national champion, LSU gets the benefit of the doubt. But it’s going to take a miracle to make the NCAA Tournament.
It has traditionally taken 13 regular-season SEC wins to receive an at-large bid from the tournament selection committee. The Tigers have won of 6-of-21 so far, so it’s hard to see them going 7-2 down the stretch.
There’s always Hoover and the automatic bid for the SEC Tournament winner.
Review/preview: Kentucky and Tennessee
Next week, Kentucky will host Tennessee. For a series with 2 teams below .500 in conference contests, this will be one to keep an eye on.
The Wildcats are trending toward playing their way out of NCAA Tournament consideration. The March sweep of Alabama, currently No. 7 in RPI, is great for the résumé, but only goes so far.
Since the Bama series, UK is 6-12 in SEC play. That’s 6 series losses, including to the bottom 3 teams in the standings: South Carolina, LSU and Mizzou. The Cats were in danger of being swept by the Gamecocks, but managed a 9-5 win on Sunday to avoid rock bottom.
Credit to UK for not being swept, but losing 6 consecutive SEC series is alarming for a tournament bubble team. Continuing the trend of going 1-2 over the final 3 series (Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas) would have the Cats finish 12-18 in conference contests and under considerable pressure in the SEC Tournament.
Tennessee’s outlook seems to drastically change week-to-week. This past week was a good one for the Vols. An impressive series win over Alabama has UT at 10-11 in the SEC with the No. 29 RPI.
The Ole Miss series was disappointing, but Josh Elander’s team is now 7-3 over its last 10 games. The Vols seem to be coming on strong at the right time, but closing out against Texas and Oklahoma figures to be tough. With the way things are trending, this might be the weekend for Tennessee to hit that magic number of 13 SEC wins. And a sweep would be devastating for the Vols’ old SEC East rivals.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
