The Horned Frogs are officially entering the 2017 as the unanimous No. 1 team in the country, as TCU came in atop the rankings in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association preseason poll on Tuesday, the last of such polls to be released.
It is the first time in program history that the Frogs have been the consensus preseason No. 1 team in the country. The only other season in which TCU came atop the rankings in any poll was 2011, when the Frogs were ranked No. 1 by the NCBWA and Collegiate Baseball polls.
The good news for TCU didn’t stop there though. Power-hitter Luken Baker garnered first-team preseason all-American honors by the NCBWA, while catcher Evan Skoug, pitchers Durbin Feltman and Brian Howard, and infielder Elliott Barzilli were all named to the third-team.
The stakes will be high for the Frogs as the season gets underway, with match-ups against other ranked teams including No. 3 LSU, No. 17 Texas Tech and No. 22 Oklahoma State. The team opens up play when the host the Penn State Nittany Lions at Lupton Stadium on Feb. 17, with the first pitch scheduled for 6:30 p.m.