Georgia, Georgia Tech rise together atop college baseball

The state of Georgia has produced plenty of good baseball teams over the years. Some very good ones, too.

But what’s happening right now with the Georgia Bulldogs baseball and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets baseball is operating on an entirely different level.

These aren’t merely two in-state programs having nice seasons at the same time. This isn’t Georgia making a regional while Tech sneaks into the field as a No. 3 seed. This isn’t one school carrying the banner for the state while the other tries to catch up.

This is both programs arriving at the NCAA Tournament as legitimate national powers simultaneously.

And that almost never happens.

Georgia Tech won the ACC regular-season and tournament championships and earned the No. 2 overall national seed. Georgia won the SEC regular-season and tournament championships and landed the No. 3 overall seed. Both will host regionals this weekend, with the Yellow Jackets opening in Atlanta and the Bulldogs beginning postseason play in Athens.

It’s difficult to overstate how unusual that is.

Georgia baseball has traditionally lived in the SEC’s heavyweight world, where every weekend series feels like a street fight and surviving conference play can be harder than advancing through a regional. Tech baseball, meanwhile, has long built its reputation on offense, swagger and producing major-league talent while playing in the ACC.

Both programs have enjoyed national success. Both have reached Omaha before. Both have spent years ranked among the nation’s better programs.

But rarely have they stood this high together.

Not with conference championship trophies in both dugouts.

Not with top-three national seeds beside both names.

Not with Omaha expectations attached to each.

And make no mistake — expectations have changed.

Georgia Tech’s season has bordered on ridiculous offensively. The Yellow Jackets lead the nation in several offensive categories and have punished opposing pitching staffs all spring. Drew Burress became Tech’s all-time home run leader during the ACC Tournament, and Ryan Zuckerman’s monster week helped carry the Jackets to the ACC title. 

The result was a No. 2 overall seed and perhaps the clearest sign yet that Tech baseball has returned to the national elite.

Georgia’s path looked different but was no less impressive.

The Bulldogs survived the SEC, which placed 12 teams in the NCAA Tournament field, then somehow managed to win both the regular-season and tournament championships anyway. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when a team possesses depth, pitching and enough toughness to survive the grind of the nation’s most unforgiving conference.

Now both programs sit in nearly identical positions.

Georgia hosts Boston College, Liberty and Long Island University in Athens. Tech welcomes Oklahoma, The Citadel and UIC to Atlanta. If seeds hold, both schools would host super regionals next week as well.

That possibility would have sounded ambitious in previous years.

Now it sounds expected.

And that’s the angle here.

Not that Georgia and Georgia Tech are good. They’re often good.

It’s that they have climbed to the top of college baseball at exactly the same time.

One won the SEC. One won the ACC.

One earned the No. 2 overall seed. One earned No. 3.

Both enter June believing they can win the national championship.

That’s not normal for one state.

That’s rare for the sport itself.

And for perhaps the first time in modern college baseball, the road to Omaha may run directly through both Athens and Atlanta.