RPI and Bracketology

#26
#26
The Presbyterian (#271) win drops the Vols one spot to #35 and Kentucky moves back ahead. This will be the last week Kentucky will be ahead of Tennessee no matter what Tennessee does against Texas.

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Clemson with a worse overall and conference record jumps 4 spots to 37 after a huge win at Coastal last night.. The Tigers are still in worse shape than Vanderbilt as they are 8-16 in ACC and the committee will not put a .333 team in tourney. Clemson closes with #7 Fla State and at #36 VaTech. They need to win five of those six games

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Warrannolan.com still predicts Vols will finish at RPI # 43 with a 12-18 SEC record. Clearly, that will not get Tennessee into the tournament. Warran's PC predicts sweep by Texas and only 1 win at Oklahoma in season finale.


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Texas A&M drops 3 spots to #11 with win over #302 Prairie View. Good for the Aggies for still playing the game. I'm rooting for them to get a national top-8 seed and winning 2/3 in Ole Miss (#13) and 2/3 in MissState (#8) finale and they will get there

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#5 Alabama did not drop in RPI after losing at #58 Troy last night. Because they play at Troy, that game counts as a Q1 loss. Alabama and Auburn have played a metric ton of in-state road games this season at places like Troy, Jacksonville State, South Alabama, and UAB.

Don't get me wrong, I love home midweek games but I miss the midweek games in Johnson City and Cookeville. The athletic department has to pay for the stadium and staff but it's a shame we can't help "grow the game" at in-state schools.

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UCLA is undefeated in the Big10 but they close with traditional opponents in last two weeks (#27 Oregon and at #172 Washington) Their current record speaks about the Big10 more than it does UCLA. However, if they sweep the final two weekends that that will prove how good the Bruins are. The only traditional team they played was USC who UCLA swept at home. One game at Rutgers went 14 ins but "good" games were rare.

UCLA has outscored their conference opponents 218-81 and have 4 run rule games.

If UCLA were still in the Pac12 they would not be undefeated.
If UCLA had gone to Big12, they would not be undefeated
If UCLA had gone to ACC, they would not be undefeated.

They are a good team, but let's put the numbers in perspective.
 
#27
#27
D1 Projections (5/5/2026)

I did not watch the podcast where they picked as I was knee deep in Canadian trucking claims. (and by Canadian, I mean 100% Indian and Pakistani truck drivers)

Top 8
UCLA (1)
Georgia Tech (2)
Georgia (3)
Texas (4)
North Carolina (5)
Auburn (6)
Kansas (7)
Texas A&M (8)


Next 8 (region hosts)
Oregon (16)
Oregon State (15)
Southern Miss (14)
Florida State (13)
Florida (12)
Alabama (11)
Miss State (10)
Coastal Carolina (9)


Tennessee is listed as 3rd team at Georgia Tech and would play 2 team Jacksonville State who is listed as the 32 seed. Farleigh-Dickinson is the 4
That region would be paired with Oregon State/ Nebraska (17), Gonzaga, Eastern Illinoi
 
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#28
#28
So last week D1 had Tn 21 or 22 I think and we drop 15 or 16 spots after a 2-2 week and losing a road series , that seems like a huge drop to me , I’ll just let the season play out and see where we finish ,I know we’re not as good as expected but our weak bullpen has gotten us into this mess and will be the reason we get eliminated
 
#31
#31
Not sure how, but the Wednesday games dropped Tennessee another spot to 36 and just one spot ahead of Clemson. Kentucky is at 35.

It appears the mover that dropped Tennessee is Virginia Tech who is up 4 spots to 32. The Gobblers went on road at beat Liberty who dropped 1 spot to 27.

the vols are 18 RPI points behind Kentucky and 18 points ahead of Clemson. The only RPI impact games tonight are Nicholls/SE Louisiana (+3.6 or -3.2) and Auburn/Miss State (+1.5 or -4.6). So Tenn will remains where they are tonight no matter what happens. A Miss State win would cut UK's point lead in half.

I have a humanities degree so I don't know what a Texas win or series win would do. Wins would help Tennessee more than losses would hurt due to Texas's RPI (3)

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RPI conference rankings w/ top TPI team

#1 Independent (1 team, Oregon State)
#2 SEC Texas #3 (UGA is 1st place in standing at #16)
#3 ACC GaTech #2
#4 Big 12 Kansas #15
#5 Big 10 duh UCLA #1
#6 Sun Belt Southern Miss #10 - Coastal Carolina #22 is first place
#7 American UTSA # 39
#8 SoCon Mercer #43- Western Carolina #48 is first place
#9 C-USA LaTech #25- Jacksonville State #29 is first place. #27 Liberty is second
#10 WAC Taleleton State #60


C-USA is having a great season and should be higher but the bottom of the leage is atrocious. MTSU #209, Sam Houston # 185, New Mex. State #199, FIU # 222 and Delaware #231 (I had no idea the Blue Hens were in that conference)

The Big10 is having their best season in the color TV era and still rank 5th (thy finished 5th last season as well) They still only have three teams in the RPI top 30. (UCLA, USC, and Nebraska) with Oregon at 26. In 2025 the B1G had only two top-30 teams in UCLA and Oregon.

SEC has 10 teams in the RPI top 30-.with Kentucky and Tennessee nearby. 4 of the RPI top 10 are SEC. Only Missouri is outside the top-100 as South Carolina is at 97. They were at 102 last week but increased even with five straight losses to Citadel and LSU- go figure.

The ACC has six top 30 teams and three top-1o teams. Boston College is in thrid place but sits at 23. The Eages have not played FSU or GaTEch but do close the season hosting GaTech after not playing in ACC this weekend. BTW, why the hell does ACC have off weekends?!?! BC crushes their RPI by playing two games against #295 NJIT and #245 Umass-Lowell on Tuesady.l

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I haven't; mention it all season, but The ELO play a factor as well. Tennessee sits well at #17 in those rankings

ELO Chess Ranking - 2026 College Baseball | WarrenNolan.com

2026 College Baseball ELO Chess Ranking: a ranking of teams by their ELO Chess Score which increases or decreases based the outcome of the game and opponents skill level (ELO ranking).
www.warrennolan.com www.warrennolan.com

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Tennessee has the 26th ranked schedule, which helps with RPI and ELO. It also explains why South Carolina is still in the top 100 as they are SOS# 16. Vanderbilt's SOS is still not that bad at #30
Auburn is #1, Florida #2, Alabama #3, Ole Miss #4, Texas #7, Oklahoma #8, Miss State #12, Arkansas #18, LSU #21

Florida has played the most Q1 games (26). In fact the top 7 of that list are all SEC teams and 8 of 10. Tennessee is 15th with 18 Q1 games tied with Miss State, So Car, and Georgia Tech.

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Warran Nolan's laptop predicts Auburn will prevail at Miss State tonight 7-3 with a 64% win probability. Will check his math tomorrow AM.

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I made the comment about road midweek games. Playing all midweek games at home hurts the RPI. Here's why for those who may not know.

A game on the road may be a quad 1 game but at home could be quad 3.

Quadrant 1 is defined as:
Games against 1-25 if played at home
Games 1-40 if at neutral site
Games 1-60 if played on road

Quadrant 2 is defined as:
Games against 26-50 if played at home
Games 41-80 if neutral site
Games 61-120 if played on road

Quadrant 3 is defined as:
Games against 51-100 if played at home
Games 81-160 if neutral site
Games 121-240 if played on road

Quadrant 4 is defined as:
Games against 101-309 if played at home
Games 161-309 if neutral site
Games 241-309 if played on road

for instance, Kent State at #45 were Quad two games because they were at home. If played on road at Kent it woudld be Q1 but would remain Q2 if neutral site game.
#68 Vanderbilt games are Q2 only because they were on road. If at home, all three games would be Q3
(32) Virginia Tech and (40) Arizona State games in Arlington are Q1 because the were neutral site. if at home they would be Q2
(55)LSU games are Q3 because they were at home. If at Baton Rouge they count as Q1-

Had we played that ETSU game in Johnson City, instead of Q3, it would be Q2

for all the teams that played Tennessee this season. At current ranking of #36.

If you hosted the Vols. Tennessee would count as a Q2
If you played us at Arlington, We would be Q1 game
If you played us in Knoxville, The Vols would be a Q1 game

The ideal for a Tennessee is that Tennessee would ALWAYS count as a Quad 1 opponent when the season has concluded. Tennessee would be an automatic Quad1 every season since 2021. The shortened season of 2020 we finished #93 after only playing 17 games against the #247th ranked out of conference schedule. Vols did finish Q1 in 2019. Since Vitello's first season in (2018) Tennessee was a quad 1 teams in every FULL season except 2018.

2018 #75 x
2019 #14
2020 COVID
2021 #6
2022 #1
2023 #12
2024 #1
2025 #11
 
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