The Best Programs of the 2000s

Imagine it’s June 9th, 1997 and you’ve just attended the national title celebration rally at Alex Box Stadium after LSU won its second straight crown and fourth of the 1990s. Afterward, you walk over to Mother’s Mantle on Highland Road and see the tarot card lady in the back corner. She tells you that the next time a college baseball team will win back-to-back titles it will be by Oregon State.

Lemme guess… “that chick is a delusional freak!” you think, right? Well as you know, the tarot cards never lie.

Something we never thought we'd see: Oregon State dogpiling in Omaha

That’s what college baseball has come to in the 2000s.

Unlike the 90s, where LSU played the predominant role as taskmaster to the rest of the nation, the 2000s have been a mixed bag of champions, contenders and Johnny-come-latelys.

The first decade of the new millennium started out expectedly as traditional powers LSU, Miami and Texas won the first three titles in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Rice won the national title in 2003 as a No. 5 seed in the NCAA tournament. Then things got weird in our sport..

Most the remainder of the decade was spent watching unseeded teams come out of nowhere to win national championships. From 2004 to 2008, five straight title winners emerged from beyond the top eight seeds of the NCAA tournament field. This proved undoubtedly that our sport had reached a true point of parity… or that the RPI formula used by the NCAA selection committee was a certifiable piece of crap.

But I digress.

With its unmatched fan following, the SEC remained a dominant conference. But emerging from the SEC’s shadow, and the addition of Miami plus the rise of North Carolina and Virginia, has made the ACC – arguably – the best conference in the country. Or at least a major player.

Northern baseball, nearly extinct in the 90s, suddenly grew like never before. Nebraska and Notre Dame both reached the No. 1 spot in the polls, hosted regionals and made the CWS in the early part of the decade, Oregon State tilted the axis of college baseball with a pair of national titles, the Big East made great strides by adding Louisville and the Big 10 showed nearly complete rededication to the sport with just about every program building or re-building their facilities at the end of the decade.

Eventually, however, college baseball proved everything runs in circles as national powers Texas and LSU met for the 2009 national title and saw the Tigers win their second title of the decade. Almost fittingly.

With that backdrop, here are the 10 best college baseball programs in the 2000s, with their pertinent stats for the decade:

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1- TEXAS

National Titles: 2
CWS: 6
No. 1 seed: 7 (5 as national seed)
Missed NCAAs: 0
Odd stat: Of their six trips to Omaha, they’ve played in four championship series.

Every coach knows if you're getting interviewed by Erin Andrews in June, you've had a good season. And Augie's been interviewed by her a lot.

I’ve got two words for you: Augie. Garrido.
Back when he first got the job in Austin, a message went up in the baseball newsgroup I was in by Bill Kernen, now the head coach of Cal State Bakersfield, that said “Be ready to see Texas winning national titles again soon.” Coach K was right. This guy completely turned this program around after the malaise of the last few years under Cliff Gustafson. And talk about quality of play, in the 10 years here, only once did the Longhorns have a team ERA above. 4.00 (4.48 in ‘08) and six times their defense fielded better than .970. THAT’s Augie-ball there. With his young pitching staff firmly entrenched, another two or three national title runs could be in the fold here.

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2- CAL STATE FULLERTON

National Titles: 1
CWS: 6
No. 1 seed: 7 (6 as national seed)
Missed NCAAs: 0
Odd stat: The Titans have been post-season hosts nine of the ten years, twice as No. 2 seeds and twice in the Super Regionals only.

George Horton wasn't happy about getting ejected from his last game as coach of Cal State Fullerton at the 2007 College World Series. But he had continued a great winning tradition there for years, before moving on to Oregon.

Like the Longhorns, even in “off” years, the Titans are never that far off, having made the post-season every year of the 2000s. This is the program that has cemented the phrase “West coast baseball” by pitching and defending their asses off. During the 2000s, they too saw only one season where the ERA was above 4.00 (4.58 in ‘08) and fielded at .970 or better seven times. First class coaching has been the hallmark here as George Horton, the longtime assistant under Garrido, took over the program in 1997 and guided it until 2007. That’s where Dave Serrano took the reigns and the program hasn’t sunk a single notch.

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3- LSU

National Titles: 2
CWS: 5
No. 1 seed: 8 (4 as national seed)
Missed NCAAs: 2
Odd stat: Just like the 90s, the Tigers rarely went on the road in the post-season, and when they did, they lost (2001 at Tulane and 2002 at Rice).

Paul Mainieri brought the LSU program back from the depths of the bayou to the 2009 national title.

The only thing keeping the Tigers from the top of this list for the second decade in a row is the lean years where LSU actually missed the post-season (2005 and 2006). The decade started with the legendary Skip Bertman leading the program to another CWS title, but soon faltered after his retiring in 2001. Paul Mainieri has brought the program back to its throne with the Tigers’ sixth national title this past June. Given his track record of winning at Notre Dame and now with LSU, it doesn’t appear that the Tiger program will have a falling off again anytime soon.

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4- MIAMI

National Titles: 1
CWS: 5
No. 1 seed: 6 (4 as national seed)
Missed NCAAs: 0
Odd stat: Only two times in the 2000s did the Hurricanes fail to win their Regional bracket, in 2007 and 2009.

The ACC's chances at breaking that long national title drought got a big shot in the arm when Miami joined the conference in the 2000s.

The Hurricane program could be considered the steadiest winner of any in the country, having advanced as far as the Super Regional round eight times in the decade, more than any other school. Even in their worst season of the decade, 2002’s 35-29 team, the ‘Canes were still just a few outs away from making it to Omaha, losing in three games at South Carolina. However, after that dominant team of 2001, led by CWS MVP Charlton Jimerson, the CWS magic has dried up as Jim Morris’ charges have won only four CWS games since then. The U has gone 1-2 in Omaha in their last four appearances.

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5- RICE

National Titles: 1
CWS: 5
No. 1 seed: 8 (6 as national seed)
Missed NCAAs: 0
Odd stat: The Owls have traveled outside of Houston only once in the Regionals during the decade, winning at LSU and then losing the Supers at Tulane in 2005.

My personal hope is that Wayne Graham coaches for another 30 years or so and breaks every record imaginable. But that's just me.

The Owls made a few post-season runs in the ’90s, but it’s been since the new millennium that the Owls have hit their stride as a program under Wayne Graham. Characterized by stud pitchers, Rice may have had the best collection of arms of any program in the last 10 years with the likes of Cole St. Clair, Jeff Neiman, Wade Townsend, Kenny Baugh, David Aardsma and Ryan Berry. And speaking of dominance, the Owls also won nine straight conference titles (WAC and C-USA) from 2000-to-2008.

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6- NORTH CAROLINA

National Titles: 0
CWS: 4
No. 1 seed: 4 (3 as national seed)
Missed NCAAs: 1
Odd stat: All four of UNC’s College World Series appearances in the decade came consecutively, in 2006-through-2009.

Coach Mike Fox has led North Carolina to unprecedented success during this decade. No wonder his players kneel before him in high praise.

Most people don’t realize how impressive it is for a team to go to Omaha four straight years. That just ain’t easy. Want proof? Coach Mike Fox is one of only two coaches to pull the four consecutive years trick in college baseball in the 2000s. The Heels may have had the best team in Division I in both 2007 and 2008 but ran into “hot” teams in Oregon State and Fresno State at the wrong time. Otherwise, we could be talking about a UNC mini-dynasty here.

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7- STANFORD

National Titles: 0
CWS: 5
No. 1 seed: 6 (5 as national seed)
Missed NCAAs: 2
Odd stat: Everything but the ring. In their five CWS appearances, the Trees have won at least two games each trip.

Coach Mark Marquess, the ultimate work-a-holic, has stud pitcher Brett Mooneyham to build his teams around for the next few years.

Our society is self-absorbed with winning – all or nothing. But you have to appreciate the fact that the Cardinal has appeared in three national title tilts this decade, including the first-ever best-of-three championship series in 2003. Bad luck has kept this storied program from adding to its national titles of 1987 and 1988. Interestingly, only Texas has won more CWS games than Stanford has in this decade as the Cardinal have posted a record of 15-9 in Omaha.

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8- FLORIDA STATE

National Titles: 0
CWS: 2
No. 1 seed: 9 (5 as a national seed)
Missed NCAAs: 0
Odd stat: The Noles made the Big Dance all 10 seasons, but only once in the decade did they travel for the Regionals.

Mike Martin has built a monster in Tallahassee. Only mountain left to conquer is winning the brass ring in Omaha.

Yeah, we’ve all heard about Mike Martin being the Susan Lucci of college baseball, having all that success and never having won a national title. But again, it’s hard to argue the year-in, year-out success of the Seminoles. In the first 10 years of this decade, FSU averaged 55.7 wins a season. Again, that’s the average there. As far as national titles go, my feeling is that this is one of those it’s-just-a-matter-of-time kind of things. The bedrock of success is there, all that’s left is one last breakthrough run before Coach Martin triumphantly rides off into the sunset.

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9- ARIZONA STATE

National Titles: 0
CWS: 3
No. 1 seed: 7 (5 as a national seed)
Missed NCAAs: 0
Odd stat: The past 10 years have been chock-full of talent for the Devils as they have had an ungodly 78 MLB draft picks in all.

I hope Pat Murphy doesn't want to box my ears for putting a picture of him arguing with an umpire here.

Though the Sun Devils possess a fistful of national titles already, the last 28 years without one has been a series of near-misses, including runner-up finishes in 1988 and 1998. But the 2000s saw them get better and better as the years went on, peaking with their 2008 team that was probably the best team in the nation and provided the MLB with an amazing 15 draftees. So with the talent that Pat Murphy has stockpiled the last few years, ASU is another program that will stalk the summit soon. Still, it’s a consistency thing as well since the Devils have yet to miss the post-season in the new century.

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10- OREGON STATE

National Titles: 2
CWS: 3
No. 1 Seed: 2
Missed NCAAs: 6
Odd Stat: The Beavers had the longest CWS drought of anyone, going 53 years between appearances before reaching Omaha again in 2005.

Pat Casey has been a miracle worker up in the far-flung hamlet of Corvallis, Oregon.

It’s both difficult to include the Beavers (given their playing in only four NCAA tournaments in the 2000s) as well as it being hard to ignore them (having won back-to-back national championships). Think about where these guys were at the beginning of the decade – a lost, unfocused and underfunded sport. Enter Pat Casey, who nearly pulled the equivalent of Bill Snyder in football at Kansas State, contructing a national power deep in the far reaches of the Pacific northwest. The rise of OSU has also had far reaching effects as programs at Washington, Washington State and Gonzaga are on notice that winning can be done in the rain belt and Oregon has re-initiated the sport by bringing in uber-successful George Horton as head coach.