Article about their new coach and his press conference. All he and the AD can talk about is F$U winning a NC. Upcoming Howser renovations should bolster FSU baseball's title hopes It has escaped them countless times and now that it has been 5 years and will be at least 6 before they have a chance to win one they are rotting green with envy and jealousy. Every single year that passes that envy becomes a heavier burden that will eventually crush them. All their program can talk about is the Gators got one and we ain’t got crap. I’m loving it. Bill, please chime in and tell us what your little birds say.
TJ— Honestly not a lot you’re going to want to hear. What I’m hearing is they feel like that they have finally shed the wet blanket and boat anchor of “11 and Meat”…… Personally I think it’s going to take much more than renovations to their baseball facilities to be competitive within the state of Florida. Link Jarrett is definitely an upgrade for their program—we would have to be blind not to see that. IMHO we do need to get our “A Game” in full swing with regards to recruiting efforts—by that I mean Sully’s earlier years “hands on” approach to contact with prospective players instead of where somebody may be rated by Perfect Game or whoever….. It is my opinion we need a truer reading on the heartbeat and drive of our incoming players. We keep that standard in tact and what goes on over there really won’t matter.
Jarrett is pretty damn good coach - clear upgrade from Jr. - things may get interesting in Sunshine Series with a quality Noles coach. All signs point to the Gators having to raise their game in a major way and even more so when Texas and Oklahoma joins the league. Middle of the pack in SEC (6th) and losing out again in Regionals at home is not gonna cut it. Stricklin needs to ask Sully what can be expected in future in terms of returning to elite status, player development and using TP as Schloss did brilliantly. A new reality dawns for Gators baseball and SEC. 6th in conference and gone in Regionals is not elite.
Link was 80-29 at ND....41-16 this past year. Of the 80-29, he led ND to 44-21 in all ACC games. He appears to be a 40+ win coach per year, just based on that, which can go a long way to Reg, etc. He will have access to far better baseball players at fsux than ND....there lies the challenge for UF.
But it will take time for him to develop relationships in Florida. Once he does it will be "Game On" as he is a savvy coach. He should be given a much longer leash than Meat had. Meat was given the keys to an ongoing machine that was good enough to get close but never rang the bell. He had all the high school connections from his dad. And maybe Link had access to all the best players in the Midwest. ND is a VERY good school. Kind of like Vandy with a better football program. And there have been good players from there.
Calling it now: Link will not win a NC at F$U. Will eat crow if it happens but at the same time will get to say WTF took you Holes so long? Everything the Lord of NO Rings touched is tainted. Holes gotta go outside that box for a championship coach.
I think LJ can coach. I question his recruiting but the SWAC is a pretty easy sell. I think he will be very successful but winning NCs is hard…
Link signed the best player on Mosley's (Panama City/Lynn Haven) state championship team last season. The kid ended up surprising him and signing with the Blue Jays as he was drafted in the top 10 rounds.
Schloss took a team a mediocre team that failed to make SEC tourney in 2021 and aggressively used the TP to make it to Omaha in his first year. D1 baseball today is not the same animal as before TP and NIL era. I sense LJ will be fiercely competitive almost immediately. I've said it before in this forum, Gators need to seriously up their game in order to regain elite status and more so when Texas and Okla. join the conference.
No question the TP has changed college baseball and LJ is not afraid to use it. Corbin hasn’t yet. Sully has only dabbled. Will be interesting. Guys like Tommy White being available for immediate playing time is incredible but I do miss the idea of watching a Brady Singer and Brandon Sproat develop before our eyes.
He is still not winning a NC. The inability to win a baseball NC will haunt the Holes for a while longer.
Well let's be real here. Florida State was a great program for a lot of years. Their program is not defined by Jr.'s 3 year coma. This new guy is proven. If he could take ND to the college WS and compete, he could do better with FSU. And , for him, recruiting in Florida should, in large part, be irrelevant or nothing new. If he had no Florida players on his roster at ND, he still did better than us with what he had. He got 'em from somewhere. And if he had Florida players, well then he can obviously recruit Florida. But I still say "so what"? Like I said, Florida State has been good in baseball for a long time before the Ice Age that is Jr. Martin--and they still couldn't beat us! As for national championships, we have 1; they have 0. It ain't easy--ask the greatest let down in college baseball history: Tennessee. So we should step up our game every year regardless of who FSU hires. I hate the idea of having to react to what they do. They should be adjusting to what we do! If UF just does its thing , gets great players who will actually be in a Gator uni rather than a pro uni, and coaches 'em up, I don't care if FSU hires Sparky Anderson or Tony LaRusso ( you younger guys can pull out the cell phones now). But I agree it sometimes takes a bigger badder dude to make you stay in the weight room a little longer before the big fight.