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Texas baseball will play its weakest opponent of the rest of the season on Tuesday as the Horns travel to historic Whataburger Field to play Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at 6:30 PM. The Horns blanked the Islanders 15-0 three weeks ago in a game that was 12-0 by the time most fans had taken their seats.
The game won’t be on the Longhorn Network, but it can be seen on Fox College Sports and streamed on the FoxSportsGo app if you’re into that sort of thing. The Islanders list Kyle Johnston as the probable starter but Texas says it’ll be Nick Kennedy.
Finding a role for Johnston is task number one right now for David Pierce. The junior has given up five walks and five runs in 21.2 innings as a starter and seven runs and six walks in five innings as a reliever. Freshman Blair Henley hasn’t been bad, but if Johnston isn’t going to stick as a closer then he probably should be the team’s Sunday starter.
Texas shouldn’t take the Islanders lightly, but as bloggers we can do just that and look ahead to the rest of the season’s schedule. TAMU-CC (8-15) is ranked 232nd in Boyd’s World’s Iterative Strength Rating as of today making them the weakest opponent on the rest of the schedule just ahead of mid-May opponent Incarnate Word (ranked 221).
After that the Horns will take on 10-13 Kansas in Lawrence before the schedule ramps up again with Oklahoma and Baylor in back-to-back weekends. The Big 12 is arguably the toughest conference in the country this year with only Kansas outside of the top 100 in ISR and only Kansas and Kansas State outside of the top 50. Only the SEC has more teams in the top 50 (8 of 14 total) as seen in the below table.
Rankings in Boyd’s World ISR by Conference
| Conference | Teams | Top 100 | Top 50 | Top 25 | Top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conference | Teams | Top 100 | Top 50 | Top 25 | Top 10 |
| America East Conference | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| American Athletic Conference | 8 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| Atlantic 10 Conference | 13 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Atlantic Coast Conference | 14 | 10 | 6 | 5 | 3 |
| Atlantic Sun Conference | 8 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Big 12 Conference | 9 | 8 | 7 | 4 | 2 |
| Big East Conference | 7 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Big South Conference | 11 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Big Ten Conference | 13 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Big West Conference | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Colonial Athletic Association | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Conference USA | 12 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Horizon League | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Independent | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mid-American Conference | 11 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Mid-Eastern Athletic Conf. | 9 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Missouri Valley Conference | 8 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mountain West Conference | 7 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Northeast Conference | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ohio Valley Conference | 11 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Pac-12 Conference | 11 | 9 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| Patriot League | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Southeastern Conference | 14 | 12 | 8 | 4 | 0 |
| Southern Conference | 9 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Southland Conference | 13 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Southwestern Athletic Conf. | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sun Belt Conference | 11 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| The Ivy League | 8 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| The Summit League | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| West Coast Conference | 10 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Western Athletic Conference | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Join us here for a midweek affair between Texas and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.