Image credit:
(Photo by Isaiah Vazquez/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
Florida State athletic director Michael Alford has been named chairman of the NCAA Division I Baseball Selection Committee for the 2026 season, sources told Baseball America on Tuesday.
Alford replaces Southeastern Louisiana athletic director Jay Artigues, who held the role in 2025 and drew widespread praise from coaches and administrators for his steady leadership and the integrity of this year’s bracket, which was viewed by many around the country as one of the most agreeable NCAA Tournament fields in recent memory.
With Alford’s appointment comes a subtle but notable procedural change to the way the Field of 64 will be built—one designed to increase transparency and provide greater clarity to coaches, fans and media. Instead of publicly seeding the top 16 teams in the field (each of whom host regional sites), the committee now plans to amend its language to rank the top 32 teams before assembling the bracket. According to a source familiar with the decision, the move was already being explored before Alford assumed the chairmanship.
While the adjustment will not change how teams are placed—geographic proximity and travel restrictions will continue to trump strict “seed line” bracketing—it marks a significant step forward in helping outsiders better understand how the committee stacks teams and values resumes.
The lack of real-time rankings has long separated college baseball from other NCAA sports, particularly men’s basketball and football, for which in-season committee sneak peeks, weekly rankings and selection show “teasers” have become commonplace. Baseball’s committee does no such thing. Fans typically learn which teams are considered top eight or top 16 caliber only when the bracket is unveiled.
“The eyeball test today is really important because you see so many teams from across the country playing each other,” Artigues said during the state of college baseball press conference in Omaha in June. “But also the structure of the conference tournament now—everybody doesn’t play each other in a lot of the bigger conferences, which makes it challenging. So, I think watching it on the ESPN platform and the eye test, I think that helps us. As far as seeing them halfway through, I think it’s a little more challenging in baseball to do that because of injury to a Friday night starter early in the season is better than late in the season. If you look at all the aspects, it makes it a challenge to do that.”
The new 1-32 delineation doesn’t completely bridge that information gap, but it does offer a public-facing window into the committee’s process while better signaling how tightly grouped the middle of the field often is.
Alford will oversee the 2026 tournament selection with the rest of the 10-member committee. The group evaluates teams using RPI, conference standing, head-to-head records, non-conference strength of schedule and performance against top 25 and top 50 opponents.