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College Football

In the greatest CWS ever played, Florida’s Jac Caglianone’s moment may define the winner

Neil Blackmon

By Neil Blackmon

Published:

One more game. 

After a record 8 one-run games, a record 17 strikeouts from a starting pitcher, a masterclass in late game clutch hitting, web gem defense, and mesmerizing starting pitching, and perhaps the best college baseball game ever played, the college baseball gods have given us one more game for the national championship.

Monday night, two of the most storied programs in the sport, LSU and Florida, play for a trophy and put an exclamation point on what will be remembered as the greatest College World Series ever played. 

The stakes go beyond just a national championship.

For LSU and its tens of thousands of fans who once again made Omaha “Baton Rouge, Midwest,” a 7th national championship, won by one of the most compelling groups of players to ever play the sport, awaits. For Florida, the chance to make NCAA history and become the first athletic program to win multiple Division I national championships in the 3 revenue sports of football, men’s basketball and baseball. The Gators would also tie Stanford for most national championships won in one month with a win, as Florida has already captured a Men’s Golf and Men’s Track and Field title since June 1. 

An SEC Storied about this magical 2 weeks in Omaha is inevitable. 

But first, one more game. 

One more game, and in particular, a tale of two tremendous players. 

For LSU, the questions started before Game 3 was even officially guaranteed: Would Paul Skenes, LSU’s generational talent at pitcher, throw for the Bayou Bengals on just 3 days’ rest? And, if so, how much?

The answer is theoretically complicated but competitively simple. 

Skenes is likely to be the No. 1 or No. 2 pick in the Major League Baseball amateur draft next month, and he has a future LSU coach Jay Johnson has to think about. But it isn’t as if pitchers haven’t bucked up for 1 more game in Omaha before (Kumar Rocker did it in 2019), and it goes without saying that Skenes will want to go out a champion, regardless of the fact he’s thrown an insane 243 pitches in the past 9 days. In regular-season time, Skenes would be throwing a bullpen Monday anyway, and while that might just be a 40-pitch outing, it suggests that there is at least something in the tank for the LSU All-American on Monday night.

For the Gators, the story starts and potentially ends with dual-threat star Jac Caglianone, the mountain of a man otherwise known as Jactani who gets the baseball with a chance to add to his growing legacy. 

Caglianone broke out of his well-documented Charles Schwab Field induced slump in Florida’s 24-4 beatdown of the Tigers on Sunday afternoon. Jactani deposited 2 pitches into the seats to become the NCAA’s single-season home run king, driving in 5 runs in the process.. 

Now 4-for-11 in the CWS Finals, the Florida star has helped erase the malaise the top of Florida’s order was in entering the CWS Finals, when the All-SEC and All-American trio of Cade Kurland, Wyatt Langford and Caglianone had just 5 hits between them in 3 games and a paltry 7 since Florida’s Super Regional sweep of South Carolina

If the Gators hit LSU’s bullpen the way they did Sunday, Florida will likely add a national championship to a season that already includes an SEC regular-season championship ring. 

Of course, Florida will have to slow the LSU bats, too, which is where Caglianone’s role gets compelling and frankly, defining. 

While Caglianone isn’t draft eligible this time, his moment as a college star arrives Monday night. 

For a player who wants to both hit and pitch at the next level, Caglianone’s moment comes, or at least begins, presciently, on the mound, not in the batter’s box. 

Caglianone has electric stuff, with a 100 mile an hour heater that has late carry and movement and a “plus” breaking ball which is a slider/cutter in the high 80s. His changeup is an out pitch too, but only when he commands it, which is what will tell the tale in Game 3.

“It’s the best fastball in our sport, other than Skenes. The question is can he command it consistently?” Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin said last month in Hoover. 

LSU was No. 2 in the country in lowest chase rate (Virginia) this season, and the Tigers’ plate discipline has already foiled starts by Florida’s powerful 1-2 duo of Brandon Sproat and Hurston Waldrep. In terms of pure stuff, Caglianone’s 3-pitch ability may be better than both, and a stingy .186 batting average against (3rd among CWS starters), is evidence of just how hard it is to barrel Jactani.

When he’s on, he’s virtually unhittable, as he was in a 6 2/3-inning, 1-hit, 9-strikeout masterpiece at Kentucky on the final day of the regular season, when he guided the Gators to the SEC title. But when Caglianone lacks command, he can be downright putrid, as a 1 2/3 inning, 6-run effort vs. Vanderbilt in Hoover demonstrated. 

Caglianone’s 2 starts in the NCAA Tournament have flashed the entirety of his range as a pitcher, from dominant (6 scoreless innings, 7 Ks vs. Florida A&M) to wild as a billy goat (4 1/3 innings, 4 walks, 3 hit batters vs. TCU in Omaha). Caglianone escaped the TCU start allowing just 1 run, but towing that line with a title on the line will be more difficult. 

Caglianone’s thunderous bat woke up Sunday, and he’ll have his opportunities to impact Monday night’s game in the box no matter how it goes on the mound. Florida also has the luxury of knowing, thanks to their 20-run rout Sunday, that their 3 best bullpen options, Ryan Slater, Cade Fisher and Brandon Neely, are all rested and available. 

But with Skenes all but certain to go for LSU, and a rested Riley Cooper waiting in the wings, it will be Caglianone’s ability to maintain his command and not hand out free passes that could define the final game of the 2023 college baseball season. 

For Caglianone, who insisted he could hit and pitch at an All-American level as a prep player and chose Florida largely because they would give him that opportunity, this is the moment he’s waited for his entire baseball life. 

In a College World Series where the media has time and time again flocked to the compelling stories in the LSU dugout, Caglianone’s moment gives Florida its own made for a movie moment. 

Will Caglianone deliver? 

If he does, Florida will finish the postseason the way they finished the regular season: Champions.

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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