Diamond Hogs Thaw, Draw Attention

As the college baseball season draws near, some of the national polls are giving the Baseball Hogs a lot of love.  After making a run to Omaha in 2009, you would be hard pressed to find a preseason poll that doesn’t include Arkansas.

Practices have been going for a few days now — inside mostly because of the winter weather in Northwest Arkansas.  With the season opener on February 19th, there’s little time to warm the bats. The Hogs visit #2 LSU to open SEC play on March 19th.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be previewing Dave Van Horn’s bunch as they make a push for back-to-back trips to the College World Series.  Until then, here’s where a few of the national publications see the Hogs to start the 2010 season.

Rank	Baseball America	Collegiate Baseball	USA Today/ESPN (Coaches)	Rivals.com
1	Texas	Texas	Texas	Texas
2	Virginia	LSU	LSU	Virginia
3	LSU	Virginia	CS Fullerton	LSU
4	CS Fullerton	CS Fullerton	Virginia	CS Fullerton
5	Rice	Arizona St.	Florida St.	UC Irvine
6	Georgia Tech	Georgia Tech	Rice	Rice
7	Florida	Florida St.	UC Irvine	Florida St.
8	UC Irvine	UC Irvine	Arizona St.	Florida
9	Florida St.	Florida	Florida	Arizona St.
10	South Carolina	Oregon St.	Georgia Tech	Georgia Tech
11	TCU	Rice	North Carolina	East Carolina
12	Coastal Carolina	Miami, Fla.	TCU	Louisville
13	Louisville	North Carolina	Miami, Fla.	South Carolina
14	Arizona St.	Ohio St.	Oregon St.	Clemson
15	Clemson	TCU	Clemson	Arkansas
16	Miami, Fla.	Clemson	Arkansas	Coastal Carolina
17	Arkansas	Coastal Carolina	Ole Miss	Oregon St.
18	East Carolina	East Carolina	East Carolina	San Diego
19	San Diego	Louisville	Coastal Carolina	TCU
20	North Carolina	UCLA	Louisville	North Carolina
21	Southern Miss	Southern Miss.	Ohio St.	Miami, Fla.
22	Georgia	Ole Miss	Oklahoma	Ohio St.
23	UCLA	Arkansas	San Diego	Georgia
24	Ole Miss	San Diego	Southern Miss.	Ole Miss
25	Oregon St.	Oklahoma	Stanford	Kansas