Arkansas is expected to be a prime College World Series contender once again this season
The Arkansas baseball team will begin its 2026 season in just over a week. It's time for the bat-and-ball sports to resume, and in Arkansas, that's cause for considerable excitement.
The buzz surrounding Arkansas baseball is considerable. The fact that UA begins the season ranked No. 5 in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll will only increase the sense of optimism among the fan base.
Arkansas being No. 5 represents the belief among the coaches that the Razorbacks are fundamentally as good as they were last season, when they were a semifinalist at the College World Series in Omaha. Arkansas was a top-four team in the country but had the misfortune of running into LSU and its superior pitching. In other years, Arkansas would have been good enough to win the whole thing, but LSU was simply better than the Hogs in 2025.
This season, the challenge for UA will be to overcome LSU. The Tigers, as defending champions, are No. 1 in the preseason coaches poll. Texas, an Arkansas rival and fellow SEC team, is No. 3 in the poll. The other two teams ahead of Arkansas in the preseason poll are UCLA at No. 2, with Roch Cholowsky -- widely acknowledged as the player most likely to be the No. 1 pick in this summer's 2026 MLB draft -- and Georgia Tech out of the ACC at No. 4.
The general consensus on Arkansas -- not necessarily a point of unanimous agreement, but certainly an area of majority agreement -- is that the Hogs should be able to mash the baseball and score a lot in 2026, but that their pitching might not be as deep or overwhelming as it was last season. UA was powered last season by lefty ace Zach Root. Not having him back for this season creates a hole in the rotation and will require new faces to step up and compensate for that roster loss.
Offense shouldn't be hard to come by, but there's a definite wait-and-see attitude toward the pitching rotation and how it will evolve over the course of the season. Van Horn, a tremendous coach who has been bitterly and brutally unlucky to not win at least one College World Series championship at Arkansas, will be challenged to manage his rotation and find a formula that works consistently.
If there is a specific reason to believe in Arkansas this season, it is simply that the SEC has been the gold standard in college baseball. Arkansas will be tested by the very best in the sport all season long. UA was clearly superior to UCLA at the College World Series. If the Hogs are able to get back to Omaha and face non-SEC teams in the bracket, they will have every chance to make a run at the championship.
UA's first game this season is Friday, February 13, against Oklahoma State at Globe Life Field, the home of the 2023 World Series champion Texas Rangers.