ACC Baseball News & Notes: Georgia Tech is the Preseason Pick

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We are now two weeks away from the start of the 2026 college baseball season. This week, the Atlantic Coast Conference released its preseason coaches’ poll, and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets have been picked as the team to beat. The Yellow Jackets, coming off an ACC regular-season championship, earned seven first-place votes and 237 points overall. They also hold the highest spot among conference teams in the D1Baseball Preseason Top 25, debuting at No. 4.

The North Carolina Tar Heels were picked to finish second, receiving six first-place votes and 236 points—trailing Georgia Tech by a single point. The Tar Heels also appear in the D1Baseball rankings at No. 11. The Florida State Seminoles follow in third with 221 points and one first-place vote, entering the season ranked No. 16 nationally.

The Louisville Cardinals, the ACC’s lone representative in Omaha last June, are slotted fourth with 196 points and are a preseason top-10 team according to D1Baseball at No. 8. The Clemson Tigers received the final two first-place votes along with 185 points, placing them fifth in the coaches’ poll and No. 19 in the national rankings.

Other ACC teams making the preseason national cut include NC State at No. 17 (169 points from coaches) and Wake Forest at No. 21 (145 points). While the Miami Hurricanes were picked eighth by the coaches with 159 points, they sit just behind the Demon Deacons in the D1Baseball poll at No. 22.

The league’s newest members from the former Pac-12 find themselves in the bottom half of the projections. Stanford is picked 10th with 99 points, while the California Golden Bears are 15th with 41 points. Rounding out the middle and bottom of the pack are Virginia Tech (89), Notre Dame (87), Duke (67), and Pittsburgh (45). The Boston College Eagles were picked to finish last with 35 points.

All 16 teams will officially open their 2026 seasons on Friday, February 13. Conference play is set to begin on March 6, leading up to the 2026 ACC Baseball Championship at Truist Field in Charlotte, North Carolina, from May 19–24. The conference remains a perennial powerhouse, having placed at least six teams in the NCAA Tournament for 21 consecutive years and sending at least one team to the College World Series for 19 straight seasons.