That series is ten days away, but it should determine the Big 12 champion with each team needing to win 2 out of 3. Although A&M sits atop the Big 12 standings on a percentage basis (15-6 record), they still have to play a home series with last place Nebraska this weekend while Texas (17-7) faces a non-con tune up against Texas Southern.
Even if the Huskers were to win 2 out of 3 against the Aggies, the winner of the Texas-A&M series still wins the regular season title either outright or with the head to head series win. The Longhorns' failure to consistently win on Sundays prevented them from taking full advantage of a late season Aggie decline and another Garrido Big 12 title (6 regular season, 4 tournament; Longhorns have 5 of the last 7 regular season titles) is pinned on an opener in College Station and two games back at the Disch.
Obviously, if Nebraska were to sweep A&M, the Longhorns would only need to win one of the three. Although there would be a certain cosmic Aggieness in that occurring, don't hold your breath.
The most important game of the series will be Jungmann pitching the opener in College Station. Win that and we're likely set. Lose and it's a confident Aggie squad needing only 1 of 2 in Austin against a Texas team that isn't all that dominant when anyone not named Jungmann pitches.
Although Texas is ranked 5th in Baseball America's most recent college poll, a low SOS makes our iterative strength ratings much more modest.
So national seeds are at stake as much as regional pride.