After four years missing out on the College World Series, baseball coach Kevin O’Sullivan thinks the 2023 Gators could be special. It just comes down to pitching, staying healthy – and, yes, the transfer portal.

by Pat Dooley (BSJ ’76)

Kevin O’Sullivan knows how to get the Gators baseball team to Omaha. But for the past four seasons, he needed a Google map to find it.

I kid because I’m a kidder. Believe me, Florida’s coach has heard it all. He put together an incredible run from 2010 to 2018 with seven — count ’em, seven — appearances at the College World Series. The Greatest Show on Dirt, as locals call it.

I think Sully had voting rights in Nebraska during that stretch. That’s why UF’s four-year absence from Omaha has burned a hole inside him.

“It feels like a decade since we’ve been there,” O’Sullivan said. “We all kind of got used to it, to go seven times. We went more than any team during that run. Even my kids, when they were young, thought this was just a yearly vacation. We all took it for granted.”

To be fair, the pandemic erased the best season during the “slump,” a 16-1 start. Not only did COVID-19 end that season prematurely, it shook the Gators’ recruiting blueprint to its core.

Sully is known for being a tenacious recruiter, a guy who seems to be at two showcases and three games all at the same time. His model was always to recruit high school players hard. With the pandemic, O’Sullivan and his staff had to do everything by Zoom.

Then, there was the tsunami known as the transfer portal. Rather than eschew his master plan, Sully stuck with what he knew: high school recruiting.

“I didn’t know the impact of the portal,” he admitted. “We were always recruiting from high school. Why change if it’s not broken? Then, we start the season and we’re seeing 23-year-olds and 24-year-olds going against our 18-year-olds. It was an eye-opener, a learning experience. You cannot ignore the portal.”

Lesson learned, he’s hoping this year’s transfers can be the boost that gets the Gators out of the Regionals. We pretty much know Florida will be IN one because the Gators have been in the Regionals every year (except for that COVID season) since O’Sullivan has been in Gainesville.

Even so, this is a fan base that expects more because it’s experienced more. It saw the Gators celebrate a national championship six years ago, and then follow it the next season with a return to the CWS semifinals.

Things turned so sour after the 2021 Regional, when Florida’s two-and-through included a 19-1 loss in the elimination game, there were whispers that O’Sullivan might be taking the LSU job and not everyone was going to be sad to see him go.

Which is hogwash. Sully has done an amazing job. When the fans consider it a down year when their team hosts a Regional tournament, you know expectations are pretty intense.

“I understand the frustrations,” O’Sullivan said.

Now comes the 2023 season with its usual burden of expectations and late-inning pressures. The Gators begin the season ranked anywhere from No. 2 to No. 7 in the country and will battle the best conference in college baseball — six of the top nine in Collegiate Baseball’s preseason poll are from the SEC.

O’Sullivan believes he has the team to handle it, mainly because of what the Gators bring to every SEC weekend: pitching, just as it was in that magical 2017 season when the Gators rolled out future Big Leaguers Brady Singer, Alex Faedo and Jackson Kowar.

This time, the pitching ace will likely be a guy from the portal. Southern Miss transfer Hurston Waldrep was a big reason the Golden Eagles made it to the Super Regionals last season, and he could be a first rounder in this year’s MLB draft.

“He’s good,” O’Sullivan said. “We were very fortunate to get him.”

Pitching will dictate how this season goes. Florida got a big boost when junior Brandon Sproat, who late last season was lights out (5-0 with a 1.59 ERA in his last six), decided to return rather than turn pro. The question is who the third starter will be. It could be one of the Gators’ All-SEC freshmen, Brandon Neely or Jac Caglianone, or junior college transfer Clete Hertzog or Pierce Coppola, who started the first weekend in 2022 and missed the rest of the season with an injury. Point is, O’Sullivan has options.

The Gators will also need to find a closer — something that was on-again, off-again last year. The closer will likely come from one of those pitchers mentioned. Or maybe junior college transfer Tyler Shelnut.

“It’s just a matter of who takes control of that role,” O’Sullivan said.

Even if the pitching is as good as it looks on paper, this year’s team will be built around junior outfielder Wyatt Langford. The young man from Trenton was an All-American a year ago when he tied Gator great Matt LaPorta’s single season homerun record with 26 and hit .355. If Langford does that again, or does better, he’ll be a high pick in the Major League Draft.

Sully is also high on Michael Robertson, who missed his freshman season with a hamstring injury. Time will tell, as it always does in college baseball. Your starting weekend rotation begins one way and ends up another. Players you’re counting on go into slumps, and others come out of nowhere.

But the heart of this team and the leadership of players, such as senior catcher BT Riopelle, junior shortstop Josh Rivera and junior third baseman Colby Halter, should give Gator fans a reason to once again dream of steak dinners at The Drover, the legendary Omaha eatery.

Baseball is a funny game. You can hear the passion in O’Sullivan’s voice. He knows he has the makings of a team that can go far. And he knows how quickly things can change.

“If we can figure out the third [pitcher] starter, stay healthy and find a closer, we can have a special team,” he said. “I love our chemistry. [However,] you don’t know what your locker room is going to look like until you don’t play well. A lot of these guys were here last year when we had the youngest team in the league and started 6-12. We came back to make the Regional Final. They figured some things out.”

That’s the game: figuring things out.

If these guys do that, you can figure on another long postseason like all of us used to take for granted.

Sportswriter Pat Dooley (BSJ ’76) covered the Gators for The Gainesville Sun for 33 years until his retirement in 2020. He still shares his love for Gator sports through his podcast, “Another Dooley Noted,” and WRUF radio program, “Dooley’s Back 9.” His Gator Nation News column does not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Florida.