Red Cup recaps the first weekend of SEC college baseball

Part of the pastoral nature of the SEC baseball fan is to, of course, keep tabs on conference rivals during pitching changes or other lulls in the game.

College baseball is unique in that obviously no team is ever going to go undefeated or even close to it, so the losses are more frequent and more enjoyable for opposing fan bases. Call that shenanigans if you will, but scoreboard watching is as old as the game itself.

Ole Miss fans already know the Rebels outcome over the weekend, but how did the rest of the SEC stack up in its first weekend of play after the long four weeks of winter we have to endure in the southeastern US of A?

• Miss. St. dropped its series to No. 24 Long Beach St. in Starkville but won the Sunday series finale to begin its season 1-2
• Arkansas lost its season opener to Illinois St. but bounced back to win the series in Fayetteville
• Georgia swept Albany though Saturday was a very competitive game
• Auburn played in the State Farm Showdown in Texas and opened the season with a loss to Oklahoma, but then the Tigers beat No. 14 Texas Tech and Kansas St. to round out the weekend
• Alabama swept the Xavier Musketeers in a mostly uncompetitive weekend in Tuscaloosa
• Kentucky swept Jacksonville St. which should be expected
• South Carolina won its series against UNC Greensboro but starts the season 2-1
• Tennessee swept Georgia Southern including a 14-0 blowout in the Sunday series finale
• Vanderbilt lost its series in Nashville to No. 7 Oklahoma St. in what was likely one of the most competitive three game weekend in the country
• Florida lost its series to Liberty in a shocking turn of events in Gainesville to open its season 1-2
• Missouri won its series over Nicholls St. but could not get the sweep on Sunday, dropping the final game of the series
• LSU swept the Maine Black Bears and scored about 459 runs in the process
• Texas A&M had some close games against Fordham but were able to pull off the sweep in College Station

So what have we learned from the first weekend of SEC play? Really not a whole lot just yet. It’s surprising to see Florida drop a home series for sure, but it could just be a blip on the radar. MSU fans can’t be overly excited about a series loss, but the Bulldogs did flex on LBSU on Sunday in a blowout win.

It’s a long season, there’s many more cold beers to be drank and hot dogs to be eaten, and once we have a couple more weekends in the books, we should be able to forecast a little more on what direction all these teams are headed.