Vanderbilt Commodores

Busy Times for SEC Baseball Coaches as Transfer Portal Opens: SEC Daily, June 3, 2025

More SEC teams are starting their offseason this week than was expected, which isn't the end of the world with the transfer portal already having 2,000-plus names in it.

Taylor Hodges

Tennessee Volunteers head coach Tony Vitello and Virginia Cavaliers head coach Brian O'Connor meet before the game at TD Ameritrade Park.
Tennessee Volunteers head coach Tony Vitello and Virginia Cavaliers head coach Brian O'Connor meet before the game at TD Ameritrade Park. / Steven Branscombe-Imagn Images

There are a few more SEC baseball teams already beginning their offseason this week than many had predicted.

Only four of the record 13 SEC teams in the NCAA Tournament won their regional. Arkansas, Auburn, LSU and Tennessee were the only four to advance to the super regional round. No. 3 Arkansas and No. 14 Tennessee will face each other this weekend. No. 4 Auburn will play No. 13 Coastal Carolina and No. 6 LSU will face West Virginia.

For the nine other SEC schools who joined Texas A&M, South Carolina and Missouri in the offseason, there’s already a lot of work to do.

The NCAA baseball transfer portal opened on Monday. As of Tuesday morning, there were more 2,400 players in the portal, 72 of those players are from SEC schools. Even some of the SEC teams still playing have had players enter the portal.

One school to keep an eye on is Mississippi State and its new coach Brian O’Connor. The longtime Virginia coach was announced as the Bulldogs’ next coach about 30 minutes after the team’s season ended in the Tallahassee NCAA Regional.

Unsurprisingly, Virginia has seen a significant portion of its roster enter the portal (15 total) and, according to 64Analytics, five of the top 10 players in the portal are former Cavaliers. It won’t be surprising to see several players follow O’Connor to Starkville.

Speaking of the newest SEC baseball coach…

Where Does New Bulldogs Coach Rank in SEC Career Wins?

O’Connor was the head coach at Virginia for 21 seasons and build himself a nice resume. He won the 2015 national championship, has seven CWS appearances, 18 NCAA Tournaments and has been the national coach of the year three times.

But in the SEC, O’Connor’s resume is just like most of the other coaches in the conference. In terms of career wins, O’Connor is sixth. Here’s what that list looks like:

SEC Baseball Coaches Career Wins List
SEC Baseball Coaches Career Wins List / Taylor Hodges

This isn’t meant to demean O’Connor’s resume nor is it an attempt to cool of the excitement around his hiring. This is a great hire for Mississippi State that showed the country that it has a premier baseball program.

But it does show that O’Connor has a lot of work to do to get to the top of the SEC.

WCWS Finals to be Without Familiar Team

One of the newest SEC softball members will be playing in the Women’s College World Series Final starting Wednesday, but it’s not the four-time defending champions.

Oklahoma’s run of national titles came to an end yesterday in a 3-2 loss to Texas Tech. The Red Raiders advance to the finals to play Texas, who is playing the finals for the third time in four years (lost to Oklahoma in 2022 and 2024).

Did You Notice?

Xxx

More SEC News:

feed

Published
Taylor Hodges
TAYLOR HODGES

Taylor Hodges is a staff writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI covering all-things Vanderbilt. Taylor brings more than a decade’s worth of award-winning sports writing, photography and video experience covering every level of sports — from Little League baseball to professional sports and other sports like hunting and fishing. Taylor is fueled by his lifelong passion for sports that began the same day Kirk Gibson hit his legendary World Series walk-off home run, Arkansas beat Texas in Austin and No. 4 Notre Dame beat No. 1 Miami in the Catholics vs. Convicts game.

Home/SEC