Florida State head coach Link Jarrett described how difficult it was for him to leave Omaha after the Seminoles were eliminated from the College World Series.
Jarrett explained that he had his assistant coaches go through an exercise on their time in Omaha. With that, they’ll look to add the right players not just to get back to Omaha but win more consistently once they get there.
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“Well, I told the assistant coaches the other day when we were off,” Link Jarrett said. “I said, ‘Write down everything you feel in every one of these games, every detail you think matters and what type of player have you to recruit to get here consistently and then win here.'”
One of the major things that Link Jarrett noted about Omaha is how important depth is for a team. In particular, pitching depth is vital given the format of the postseason in college baseball.
“When you’re here all of a sudden it’s a different game. To get here, the depth on the mound is so critical. Once you’re here, it’s how dynamic are a handful of those arms,” Jarrett said. “So it changes. So you have to build it for both. You have to have enough depth but then you also have to make sure you have some really capable, dynamic pieces to wipe out some of the stuff that happens in these games. And the strikeouts is a huge part of that.”
Florida State was one of the surprise teams of the 2024 season, making it to Omaha after missing the postseason entirely in 2023. It was a massive step forward but that doesn’t make it easier to walk away as one of the losing teams.
“It’s very difficult to leave here. I’ve had to deal with this a lot. I’m also very fortunate to have been here as a coach a couple times and with two programs and as a player. You try to learn every time. And the health is part of it. I’m sure if you ask any of the coaches they had some really tough injury losses,” Jarrett said.
“How do you overcome that? I think about the fall all the time. What do you do with some of these arms in the fall? When you look at what we have coming back, what we have coming in, it’s got a chance to be really special on the mound. How do you handle that? So you’re reflecting on how you get your work, how you keep them healthy, when do you push them, when do you back off, how do you manage your preseason, how do you structure who pitches in the middle of the week, and your relief stuff. It’s a complicated thought process for me to build it correctly.”
Florida State is one of the most successful programs in the history of college baseball, with the program going to the College World Series 24 different times. However, the Seminoles have never won it all in Omaha and the last time they made it to the championship series was in 1999.
“So, as I’ve gone through it as a player, it was always what can I do better to make sure, when my number’s called at the plate, in the field, helping lead a team that I can get it done. And then as a coach, you have a very similar feeling to walk out of there. It’s eerily similar. But you’re looking at different issues to try to solve so that you can get it right. And the transfer stuff, we sat in our hotel rooms as a coaching staff and tried to navigate the guys in the portal, the 4500 players in the portal, to try to get it right,” Jarrett said.
“And it’s more clear when you’re in this moment here playing in it, can that guy help you? Is that guy what we need? So you’re trying to solve it as a coach in how you build and how you teach and how you manage the team and strategize it and call pitches and run an offense, it’s different than what you were doing as a player, clearly, but the feeling of it is equally as difficult in both respects.”
While the 2024 season did end in frustration, the Florida State program appears poised to return to Omaha under Link Jarrett, especially if he and his staff can learn and grow from this loss.
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