Dallas Baptist University Is Joining the PAC-12 for Baseball

What happens when the last two independents to make the field of 64 in college baseball’s prolific postseason are now in the same conference? Well, the PAC-12 is about to find out.

Today, Dallas Baptist University announced it will be joining the conference in a limited role for baseball only starting in July of 2026. The Patriots will be joining a once premier baseball conference in an effort to bring it back to its former glory, with play beginning in the spring of ‘27. 

The DBU Patriots are a fantastic add to a conference that needs more firepower when it comes to baseball talent. Their current streak of 11 consecutive tournament appearances gives an instant boost of credibility to the conference. Only Florida, LSU, Oklahoma State, and Vanderbilt have had such success in getting to a regional.

In that same time, DBU has had 38 players drafted to MLB, placing them ninth nationally! While additional teams may still be looming in the distance, the current announcement makes the PAC-12 appear to be a Power Five baseball conference once more. While baseball can be viewed as mostly regional, the addition of two Texas schools (Texas State and the aforementioned) creates new recruiting trails in adding talent to the PAC-12.

So, a quick rundown of the current teams looking at the 2027 season: Fresno State (won a national championship in 2008); San Diego State (alma mater of Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn and World Series MVP Stephen Strasburg), which has a new up-and-coming head coach in Kevin Vance; Gonzaga (four tournament appearances since 2016 behind coach Mark Machtolf); Texas State (recently making noise in the Sun Belt including a NCAA tourney appearance in 2022); Washington State (storied baseball team in a rebuilding mode up in Pullman, has four CWS appearances and 16 NCAA tournaments coached by Nathan Choate); and of course Oregon State (three National Championships, a CWS team in 2025, 18 of last 20 tournament appearances, 206 ML B draftees, and coached by former Beaver great Mitch Canham).

On the outside looking in, one can see that this could be a very fun and competitive conference that just may shape the national landscape of college baseball in the near future. 

Dallas Baptist comes in as one of the few teams in the country with a winning record versus the Beavers in the past 20 years. Now, these two consistent postseason squads will be matching up every year, making for must-watch college baseball magic.

I, for one, am happy to see the West Coast continue to rebuild itself to its former glory, and adding a DBU vs. OSU rivalry helps fuel the flame.

The PAC-12 welcomes the Patriots to its hallowed baseball halls and will look to regain a Men’s College World Series annual presence. Time will tell, but there is no doubt that this is a step in the right direction.