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College Football

Gators savor their return to Omaha but know this special Florida team is capable of more

Neil Blackmon

By Neil Blackmon

Published:

For the first time in their new 3-year old ballpark, the Florida Gators’ final home game ended in an orange and blue dogpile.

For the first time since 2018, and the 13th time in program history, the Gators are headed back to Omaha. Florida’s 13 College World Series appearances rank 2nd in the SEC, behind LSU (19), which also will join the Gators “somewhere in middle America” this week.

Florida’s Super Regional sweep of SEC foe South Carolina, fueled by the type of dominant pitching that tends to win the day at cavernous Charles Schwab Field, was a reminder of what this Gators team could still accomplish: a second national championship. Florida head coach Kevin O’Sullivan acknowledged as much speaking to the media Saturday night.

“We’re thrilled to get to experience (Omaha) again. Getting to Omaha is goal No. 1 at this program. That said, we feel like we have a team that can do some special things in Omaha,” O’Sullivan said.

He isn’t wrong.

Florida is the most complete baseball team still playing.

They aren’t quite as talented, top to bottom, as LSU, which features the nation’s best pitcher in Paul Skenes and perhaps the nation’s best player in Dylan Crews. Skenes and Crews might go 1-2 in the Major League Baseball amateur draft next month, and several other LSU players should hear their names called. One ESPN baseball analyst even compared LSU favorably to some minor-league farm systems this past week.

Florida’s starting pitchers aren’t quite as dominant as No. 1 seed Wake Forest, either. The Demon Deacons have a projected top-10 pick in ace Rhett Lowder, another big time prospect in Josh Hartle, and a first-team All-ACC number 3 in Sean Sullivan. Opponents are hitting just .211 against the Demon Deacons’ trio, and the Deacs are 31-5 when one of them pitches.

Florida also doesn’t hit quite as well as say, 7 seed Virginia, which the Gators will face in their Omaha opener. The Wahoos lead the nation with a .333 team batting average and join only LSU among teams headed to Omaha averaging 9 runs a game.

But put together everything: talent, starting pitching, bullpen arms and offense, and it’s tough to find a more complete team in Omaha than the Gators.

Talent often finishes first, and the Gators are the sole team in Omaha with 3 players ranked among Major League Baseball’s top 30 prospects (outfielder Wyatt Langford (3rd), pitcher Hurston Waldrep (20th), and pitcher Brandon Sproat (29th). Another All-American, Golden Spikes Award finalist Jac Caglianone, a sophomore who leads the country with 31 home runs, isn’t yet draft eligible.

Florida used marvelous starting pitching and a home-run heavy offense to win the regular-season SEC championship, and the timely power hitting and deep bullpen helped them survive a regional where they needed to win 3 games in a row to advance to Supers. Florida’s opponents are hitting just .202 against their 3 weekend starters (Sproat, Waldrep, and two-way star Caglianone), the best mark of any team headed to Omaha. Florida also led the country in home runs in the regular season, and they trail only LSU in that category after Super Regionals.

Waldrep has been especially dominant in the NCAA Tournament, tossing 15 innings of 1-run baseball with 25 strikeouts. Those NCAA Tournament numbers are better than Lowder’s (12 1/3 IP, 5 ER, 17 Ks) and Skenes’ (16 2/3, 2 ER, 21 Ks).

“Waldrep’s stuff is as nasty as any guy in the field, especially when the changeup is going like it was on Saturday night,” a scout from the Atlanta Braves said via text after observing Lowder and Waldrep pitch in the past 2 weeks.

“Waldrep was incredible. There’s no two ways about it. (Waldrep) was incredible. He would’ve beaten anybody in the country tonight,” South Carolina manager Mark Kingston said after the game. “He was on a mission and he was as good as I’ve seen in that situation maybe in 20 years. For a guy to pitch like that, to carry his team to Omaha, he put them on his back and you’ve got to give him credit.”

And the Gators’ pitching runs deep, as dominant performances by freshman Cade Fisher (9 IP, 1 ER) this postseason demonstrate.

Florida’s depth also shines offensively, which is how the Gators managed to sweep a good South Carolina team in a Super Regional where Langford went hitless and Caglianone was limited to 2 singles. When you have pieces who can pick their teammates up, like BT Riopelle, who hit this mammoth 445-foot homer off South Carolina All-American Will Sanders, you have a team that can survive when its stars have back-to-back quiet nights.

Riopelle also showed what this Florida team can do with the leather — throwing out Carolina baserunners from his knees on multiple occasions.

Put that all together and you have a special team, one capable of capturing Florida’s 2nd CWS crown. You don’t arrive at Omaha 50-15, battle-tested and scarred from life in the rugged SEC, if you aren’t good enough to win the whole thing.

The draw matters too, of course, and Florida avoids LSU and Wake Forest in the early portion of the tournament in Omaha. Stanford, a deep, talented No. 8 seed with a dominant ace, could also be on that side of the bracket. While the Demon Deacons and Tigers may beat each other up, Florida’s side, which will feature Cinderella Oral Roberts, surprising TCU, and 7 seed Virginia, is more forgiving. A path to a championship series is available, should the Gators beat a testy Cavaliers team in their opener and stay in the winner’s bracket.

That’s heady stuff for O’Sullivan and the Gators, whose journey back to the program’s first College World Series since 2018 has been arduous.

“I can’t say there hasn’t been doubt,” O’Sullivan reflected before the Super Regionals. “We fell short a few times, and lost regionals at home. It was tough. It’s hard to sustain excellence. This group is special. They’ve returned us to that place as a program.”

They have.

They might be capable of more.

Neil Blackmon

Neil Blackmon covers Florida football and the SEC for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.

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