Yeah, which is why I find it interesting so many people are down on Texas coming into the season.
Texas can be a terrible hitting team this year and they are gonna win quite a few games with as many arms as they have. Texas is absolutely loaded on the mound.
No need to put much stock into these preseason rankings. They're, at best, a guess. While a lot of the national guys put these out there, the information available to them is extremely limited. You have fall scrimmages, media days and that's it. Most of what they have are the statistics from last season, player addition and subtraction, and coach-speak. We will know what the Top 25 looks like around the second week of conference play.
What I like about what Augie has done schedule-wise is that he has not put together a schedule of cupcakes. Of the five non-conference series, three (UCLA, Tulane & Cal) were in the post season, and Stanford is a team that has traditionally been a post season participant. Mix in away single games vs the ags and Houston, you have five teams that were in the CWS last year. UNLV has some solid talent and are a scrappy ball team that will not lay down.
Compare that to some other top ranked schools' non-conference schedules, Florida only has Miami and Florida St. in non-conference series; Louisville has only Ole Miss; ags have only Pepperdine plus the game vs UT; Vandy has only Radford; Oregon St has only San Diego St.
Think of it this way, Texas could be the Pac12 champ heading into Big 12 play.
Seriously, folks can fault Augie for different things, but putting together a solid non-conference slate of games should be considered in the many things he does very well. The team will no-doubt be battle tested by the time we get to Big 12 play.
