Florida State baseball coach Link Jarrett ready to make 'unique' return to Notre Dame
Friday night will be a strange for Link Jarrett.
He will return to South Bend, Indiana, for the first time as the Florida State baseball head coach since leaving the Irish last summer for the job at his alma mater.
The Seminoles (14-25, 5-16 ACC) play Notre Dame (23-16, 11-10) in a three-game ACC series starting Friday at 6 p.m.
Jarrett will walk into familiar territory.
"I really haven't had a chance to even absorb some of the stuff. I think that happened because of how this transpired here right after the College World Series," Jarrett said to the local media during a Zoom call Thursday.
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"So it will be unique to walk out on the field, the field that I redid, the turf, I redid the bullpens, the cages, the graphics, the dugouts and really all of it. To walk back in after you've been away for a little while to kind of take a look at what this one actually looks like. It'll be unique on a lot of layers. There's no way around it.
"We build that roster like. We had a hand in recruiting all these guys. There are 11 grads on that roster and some of them were grad students that were at Notre Dame that had to get into grad school at Notre Dame and other ones were ones we recruited and attracted there for graduate school."
Under Jarrett, the Irish went 86-32 (.729), the second-best winning percentage in the country during his three years between 2020-22. They went 44-21 in ACC play, the best record in that span.
Jarrett led Notre Dame to back-to-back Super Regionals for the first time in program history and to the 2022 College World Series, just the third appearance for the program.
He added the return will feel different than his return to Tallahassee last season.
"I think it's just different in terms of when I came down here like you get to see your family and there's people you knew from high school and guys you played with," Jarrett said.
"When we're going up there my gut is like it's a more unique, compact relationship network that you have. But yet the hand our staff had in building what we're walking into is very significant. So I feel that it's quite a different stance of belonging, like in terms of in the three years that we were there, of what we're able to build to do.
"It's a little different than, you know how you grew up here and walking back into this place and just seeing people that you hadn't seen in 15 or 20 years."
Important series for Florida State baseball
The Seminoles sit 11 games under .500 with 15 games left on the season, meaning they will need to finish 14-1 to finish the season with a winning record. They have never posted a losing record.
Florida State has a chance to bounce back this weekend with a three-game road series against Notre Dame.
The series will mark the first return for FSU head coach Link Jarrett to South Bend, Indiana for a game since taking the job with the Seminoles.
Jackson Baumeister will start for the Seminoles in the opener, with Conner Whittaker likely to be on the bump in Game 2. Sunday's game will likely be a bullpen game.
Last season, the Irish swept FSU by a total of five runs in three games in Tallahassee. The Seminoles took two of three on the road against the Irish in 2021.
The Seminoles are just 3-14 on the road this season and currently sit in dead-last in the ACC standings at 5-16. They sit three wins behind NC State, Louisville, Pittsburgh and Georgia Tech.
The bottom two teams don't qualify for the ACC 12-team tournament, scheduled to be played at Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham, N.C. this year.
FSU has three ACC series left this season but this one seems to be the most winnable. The Seminoles host No. 2 Wake Forest (35-6, 16-4) from May 12-14 and then play on the road against No. 21 Louisville (27-13, 8-10) to end the regular season May 18-20.
"We've positioned ourselves now where the must wins are essentially like every time you walk out there whether we want to phase out or not," Jarrett said. "I mean, that's kind of where we position ourselves."
Florida State at Notre Dame
When: Friday, 6 p.m.; Saturday, 4 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m.
Where: Frank Eck Stadium; South Bend, Ind.
TV/Radio: ACC Network Extra (Friday); ACC Network (Saturday); ESPN2 (Sunday)
Records: FSU, 14-25, 5-16 ACC; Notre Dame, 23-16, 11-10
Scouting ND: The Irish are hitting .242 as a team for the season, the worst mark in the ACC. Carter Putz leads the team with a .288 average, with no players hitting above .300. ... Notre Dame is also dead last in hits (311) and runs (228). This could be a matchup that the FSU pitchers need to rebuild confidence. ... The Irish are middle of the pack in pitching with a 4.57 ERA, which ranks seventh in the conference. ... Notre Dame has allowed 40 home runs, the fourth fewest in the ACC. ... Aidan Tyrell has been the best statistical pitcher for ND with a 7-1 record, 2.76 ERA to go along with 38 strikeouts and 13 walks in 42 ⅓ innings. ...
Reach Ehsan Kassim at ekassim@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Ehsan_Kassim. You can also follow our coverage on Facebook (NoleSports) and Instagram (tlhnolesports).
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU baseball: Seminoles, Link Jarrett travel to Notre Dame for series
