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OU Baseball: Oklahoma Finally Enters Rankings

After a strong week and two series sweeps to open Big 12 Conference play, the Sooners have catapulted into this week's college baseball rankings.

John E. Hoover

OU Baseball: Oklahoma Finally Enters Rankings
OU Baseball: Oklahoma Finally Enters Rankings /

A hot week and a 6-0 start to Big 12 Conference play has made college baseball voters take notice.

Oklahoma after sweeping No. 12 TCU last weekend in Fort Worth, the Sooners debuted this week in several college baseball polls.

OU improved to 13-6 overall as the Sooners outscored the Horned Frogs 23-12 in their three-game series at Lupton Stadium, and after sweeping UCF and TCU on back-to-back weekends are all alone atop the Big 12 standings.

Skip Johnson’s squad jumped into the Baseball America Top 25 at No. 14, is ranked No. 17 by D1Baseball.com and No. 20 in the USA Today Coaches Poll — where they jumped 22 spots from last week’s rankings.

Moreover, The Sooners have the nation’s No. 5 RPI, according to BoydsWorld.com.

OU is 4-1 so far this season against teams ranked in the Baseball America Top 25.

This week the Sooners host No. 20-ranked Dallas Baptist on Tuesday night (DBU beat OU 11-7 in Dallas back on Feb. 20), then welcome West Virginia for a three-game Big 12 Conference series at L. Dale Mitchell Park on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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