OMAHA, Neb. — LSU and Florida.
The adversaries in the best-of-three finale of the 2023 Men’s College World Series (Saturday, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN) know each other well, but also, they really kind of don’t.
Inarguably the standard bearer for college baseball’s modern era is LSU, winner of six MCWS titles, but none since 2009. The last time the Tigers made the finals, they were denied that seventh title in 2017 by … Florida.
Florida is in the conversation as college baseball’s best program during that LSU title drought, making its eighth trip to Omaha since 2010 and its fourth finals appearance since 2005. Yet somehow the Gators have flown, er, crawled under the national radar.
It’s a duel of dynasties. A program seeking to re-establish the spot atop the sport while the other fights to remind people they have constructed their own power program.
“I can see the similarities, for sure,” admitted Cade Beloso, aka the “Creole Bambineaux,” a fifth-year slugger and spiritual “glue guy” in the LSU clubhouse. “I think you have to be alike to both be in this spot, playing for a national championship.”
The Tigers and Gators certainly looked similar as they clomped around in their cleats through the tunnels of Charles Schwab Field, aka The Chuck, on Friday for batting practice. What LSU head coach Jay Johnson described as “real grown men rosters” packed with very large baseball-playing humans posting very large baseball player numbers. But the way those rosters were procured are as different as they are the same, huge new-age transfer portal additions mixed with old-school homegrown recruits.
Florida boasts the third-ranked ESPN.com MLB draft prospect in left fielder Wyatt Langford, who hit a ballpark record 456-foot ninth inning home run to defeat Virginia in the second game of the MCWS. The only players ranked above him are Tigers. Top-ranked LSU outfielder Dylan Crews is already considered one of the greatest hitters in recent college baseball memory, hitting .423 with 18 home runs and 69 RBIs. Teammate Paul Skenes, ranked second on that MLB prospect list, has been just as prolific on the mound. He’s 12-2 with a 1.69 ERA and a just-set SEC career strikeouts mark of 209. Next year’s MLB draft is likely to be topped by Florida’s Jac Caglianone, aka “Jactani,” college baseball’s Swiss Army Knife, hitting .325 with 31 home runs and 84 RBI while boasting a pitching record of 7-3 with 85 strikeouts.
“I think initially they were identified by their offense and rightfully so, they’ve got some star power in their lineup and I think our team was the same way,” observed Kevin O’Sullivan, now in his 16th season as Florida’s head coach. During his tenure, the Gators have never missed the NCAA tournament and have made eight trips to Omaha. “Obviously, they had Skenes who has had arguably the best season in the history of college baseball. But yet we’ve got Brandon Sproat (8-3, 127 Ks) who came back to school and we have Hurston Waldrep (a Southern Miss transfer who is 10-3), of course, and Jac. So, I think the biggest similarity that I see just from the outside looking in is the improvement with their bullpen over the course of the year, and I think the same could be said about us as well.”
Both teams are led by a couple of Gen Xers whose baseball upbringings have brought them to this moment as college baseball coaches in the MCWS. Johnson was raised in the world of West Coast ball in California, Nevada and Arizona. O’Sullivan grew up full-on Sunshine State to the core, still leaning on the teachings of his mentor, Bob Shaw, an old-school former big leaguer who pitched in the World Series for the Detroit Tigers and won an American Legion World Series as a head coach with O’Sullivan as his catcher.
LSU and Florida are both members of the SEC, the league that has produced the last three MCWS champions (8 of the past 13), had at least one team in 13 of the past 14 finals and this weekend will have both teams in the finals for the fourth time since 2011. But even though they are leaguemates, when these two titans of college baseball meet Saturday night on the sport’s biggest stage, it will be the first time they have faced off since March 27, 2022 — a span of 454 days.
They are so unfamiliar that when LSU first baseman-turned-folk hero Tre’ Morgan was asked Friday morning for an assessment of his Florida foes, he politely shrugged his shoulders and passed the task to teammate Crews, who knew about the other roster only because he’s a Florida native and grew up playing youth league ball with a gaggle of Gators.
To be clear, none of that was a diss.
“We concentrate on our side of the bracket and the opponents that we know we will see when we get here,” Johnson explained, saying his team came to Omaha with folders stuffed with information on Stanford, TCU and Wake Forest, the other teams on their side of the CWS schedule. They also had “three empty folders and one labeled Florida 2022, waiting to see who we would hopefully have to face when we made it to the finals.”
Florida also admitted to not having started a ton of in-depth title series research on LSU. But the Gators, having gone 3-0 over the first six days of the MCWS — resulting in two days off — did watch the Tigers as baseball fans, sitting in the grandstands for Thursday night’s epic semifinal contest when LSU outlasted Wake Forest in eleven innings to advance.
“It has been awesome to watch, just as a fan of baseball, because all of these games have been so great, including the ones we’ve been in. I’ll never forget this week, the rest of my life,” said Florida catcher and anchor BT Riopelle, referring to the fact that nine of the 13 MCWS games played to this point were determined by two runs or less. All three of the Gators’ wins have been one-run victories. “But as great as it has been, the time for reflection on all of that is down the road.”
Riopelle’s comment set a tone Friday that was hugely shared between the teams. Wonder and entertainment are not the goals. Being in a dogpile either Sunday afternoon or Monday night is. That’s why, even as both teams looked super loose during Friday’s practice sessions at The Chuck.
“Coach has always preached to treat every game as if it is championship game, even if it’s a midweek game in March,” Crews said. “The idea is that when we reach our ultimate goal, playing in a championship game, it will feel normal. Every trip is a business trip. But now here we are, in that game, so it feels like business.”
LSU will have to go about its business without Skenes, who threw eight shutout innings Thursday night, unless the championship series does reach a Game 3 on Monday night and even still, he likely won’t be ready for another lengthy start. Florida’s staff is rested, but it’s their biggest bats who need to wake up. Cade Kurland, Langford and Caglianone, who came to Omaha having raked a combined 66 homers and 216 hits, have scuffled at The Chuck with a combined 4-for-38 at the plate. That’s a .105 batting average.
“There is a real adjustment to be made here in this ballpark, a big place where runs and extra base hits can be hard to come by,” O’Sullivan said. “But we’re both in the same boat. So, add that to your similarities list.”
It’s a long list. And at the top of that inventory a similar goal: Win the 2023 Men’s College World Series.
“You want to play against the best,” Morgan said as he headed out to the field practice. “I think that whenever we are done here, whichever team wins, no one can doubt that we did that.”
