FSU held an individual skills camp on Sunday afternoon where the hosted about 500 prospects from the 2025 through 2028 recruiting classes. There were several new offers coming out of camp.


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Video interviews with Link Jarrett, Carson Dorsey, Brennen Oxford and Alex Lodise talking about FSU's 7-3 win over Virginia this afternoon to keep their season alive and advance to another game Tuesday.

LINK JARRETT: To explain the feeling of sitting up here Friday night is not something I can remotely relay to you. This team's response of playing arguably the best game we've played this year pretty much sums up what's in that dugout. And it's not easy to go to bed after that. It's not a pleasant day.

And to watch them play their best game, that was just a thrill I'll never forget here. And I've had some. That was beyond an experience I've had here and just the response.

And it's hard to say that, wow, you guys have responded all year. That's just your team. Well, when you're in this, it doesn't always tee itself up for you to just go and respond. You have to execute in every phase of the game.

The starting pitcher has to command his stuff. It's got to be good enough stuff to handle the best offensive team or one of the top two in the country in terms of their ability, bat-to-ball skills and athleticism. He had all four pitches going -- fastball, curveball, you landed your slider, was good, and the change-up.

And when he has all of that early and finds it and goes with it, it's exactly what you saw. And when you face those guys in Charlotte, it was a little different story.

So just the toughness to deal with how that relief appearance went in Charlotte that was not good and to respond today with that performance against that team, pretty remarkable.

I think Brian is one of the classiest people in the business. That is a model program. There are certain programs, as you're trying to figure out what you're doing in coaching, that you look to duplicating the things they have done. And that's an A-plus coaching staff.

Their team, frontline, they play the game the right way. So, again, hats off to them. It's not easy to be in this stadium this time of year, and they clearly are regulars.

I thought the fifth inning -- we talk about self-contained relief, if you're going to start games and get through enough of it to really make this a start, I thought the fifth, when he went F7, hit by pitch, walk, right, great play in center field by Williams to lay in on the little soft fly ball and then an L6.

And that's becoming your own relief pitcher. If you can't do that, you're not going to be in the conversation to pitch six or seven or eight innings of a game. So, huge.

And I think sometimes the momentum that you gain from getting out of it on the field, you come right in, and we had a really good bottom of the fifth. There were two outs and nobody on, if I'm not mistaken, and Cam hits the ball and turned into a double.

And Tibbs, I think they walked Tibbs. And Marco had the two-strike hit. Nice job by Ty Megahee of slowing it down. He sensed Marco was getting a little bit frustrated and used an offensive visit, which was well done on his part. And then Ferrer hits another home run.

I thought the fifth inning was really the turning point in the game. Lodise's nice home run. And Oxford, think about how that kid felt leaving here Friday when you've waited your whole life -- you've been in two programs and you wait your whole life to step on that mound -- and he had to deal with what he had to deal with in that game.

We should have won that game. And his response to be better -- his stuff was actually better. Really proud of him and happy for him.

Good play at second. Two good plays at short. Really three good plays at shortstop. Really nice play at third base, a nice diving play. And then Ferrer made a nice running catch towards the foul line and clearly probably didn't need to slide for the one that evaded him there late.

That's enough from me. These guys did the real work today. But I'm proud of the response and the answer by this team. I don't know that I've ever been through anything like Friday night, and I haven't been a part of a response to something that I'd never seen on this stage before.

Q. Carson, for you, obviously you clearly have respect for the Virginia offense and what they're capable of; you saw it firsthand. Curious, first off, how you adjusted your approach against them. I know it's different when you're starting. And just what has been the key for you to unlock the success you've had during these three postseason weeks here?

CARSON DORSEY: Yeah, today we had these guys behind us the whole time making great plays the whole game. But being able to have more than just the fastball working and trusting in those pitches is what really made the difference between today and the last time.

Q. Jaime, can you speak about the second at-bat, the home run there? And tell us about your approach today and how you were able to take advantage of a really big moment there for your team.

JAIME FERRER: I was just trying to see something up. He struck me out in the at-bat before on all heaters. I felt I was feeling the heaters. I was trying to be fastball timing. I was trying to see something up. And I saw a slider up in his hand. And I got enough on it to get out of the ballpark.

During BP we noticed a lot of balls were leaving the park if they were elevated to left field. At the end of the day you've got to stick to your same approach. You've got to look for one pitch. And when you get it, you can't miss it.

I think the team that does that more times than not will have a lot of success at the plate. We had a few key hits.

And being able to come out clutch for my team is awesome. We still get to dance and we still get to play on Tuesday and compete for a national championship, which at the end of the day is everyone's goal here. And all eight of these teams are championship-caliber teams. For us to come out here with a win means the entire world to us.

Q. Jaime, I know you homered on the first pitch against Woolfolk in that fourth inning, but you guys worked a lot of long at-bats against him early. Was that a game plan going in against him to make him throw a lot of pitches early in the game?

JAIME FERRER: Not necessarily. At the end of the day it's great to get the starting pitcher out of the game early. But the at-bats that we put up, like, for example, having Marco, Tibbs, Cam and Max putting up long at-bats in front of me helps me at the end of the day. I get to see more pitches and a scouting report from them.

He's a great arm. For us to be able to knock him out of the game early was huge for us. And just the game plan that we have and the trust that we have in each other is what helps us put up big innings.

Q. Carson, that seemed like one of the highest volume usage of the curveball for you today. How good did you feel with the curveball? And how far has that pitch come since you started working with Micah this season?

CARSON DORSEY: Yeah, we saw it worked early in the game, and we decided to stay with it. Don't change what's working.

Q. Jaime, what's it like to see guys like Alex and also Cam getting it going for you guys in the fifth inning before you squared your second home run of tonight?

JAIME FERRER: It's awesome. I always say that hitting is very contagious. We see the guys in front of you that are putting up good at-bats and they're having success. It means the game plan that we're going up to the plate with are working.

And it gives us confidence. And you don't want to be the guy that doesn't get a hit when everyone's getting hits. It's super contagious.

We like to have fun. Seeing them in front of me gives us a lot of confidence and gives us a game plan. When they come back in the dugout, like I said, and we know how their fastball is looking that day because the guy that you're facing isn't the same arm every day. One day he might have a little more life to his fastball.

Getting that feedback from them and kind of having mature guys in the lineup, 1 through 9, is something that helps us a lot, for sure.

Q. Jaime, as one of the leaders of this team, what was the emotions like yesterday after coming off of Friday and what allows you guys to be able to respond the way you do?

JAIME FERRER: It's hard. It was a hard loss on Friday, a game we felt like we should have won late in that game. But for us to come back and have another opportunity to come out here and compete and play in front of these fans is a true blessing. It's something we don't take for granted.

We have leaders, 1 through 9, and the entire team. So for us to be out here to play and have another opportunity to play for a national championship is something that we don't take for granted. We started 0-1 but we've seen teams that have done it. We have that opportunity so we're not going to take it for granted.

Q. Being here in that uniform, how much do you think about 11 when you see the jerseys everywhere and how much do you think about your coach when you're coaching at Omaha?

LINK JARRETT: A lot. And I hear his voice. There's things that as the game's going I kind of hear: "You've got to have somebody on the mound at the end of the game that you trust. If you remember one thing I've told you, let it be that."

And then three hours later he'd say, "If I've ever told you one thing, don't get beat deep." It was on -- I just hear that all the time. And he's the best. Like, he's the best that's ever coached this sport at this level.

This is a different game than when you watched the Yankees and the Red Sox play. He mastered the art of coaching at this level. He did. So I hear it. I think about it.

And it burns me up that I didn't participate in the games that won it for him. It's tough.

I'm happy to be here, but I'm not going to be happy until we've delivered the result.

There's plenty of teams that are here that have not answered and done it. I get it. But when you've been on that field so many times as a player and you walk out of there and you were empty at the end, it sticks with you.

So my quest in coaching was to learn what to do to make sure that that did not repeat itself for the guys on our team. So that's all you do.

And then if that's not good enough you can lay your head down knowing you gave it all you had. And I hear his voice and his voice meant so much. And it still does because I still hear it.

Like I told you, I finally imitated him to him, and he was, "Oh my good...." he loved it. He's the best. And he laid the foundation for me in this game. And I didn't have anywhere to go.

It was probably about this time in June when he told me I could be on the team at FSU, as a senior, not as a sophomore and an eighth grader like the guys do now. I could go on and on, but he's the best.

Q. Did you guys do anything special in the off-day there after the tough loss on Friday to bounce back, get ready for today's game?

LINK JARRETT: I came and watched my son throw batting practice and sat behind the first base dugout like a normal -- I guess that's what a normal dad, maybe just something like that. My headache, I cannot tell you how bad my head ached Friday night. Saturday, I cannot tell you. There's no way to dodge it. That's how bad you felt.

We went to the Kiwanis and the American Legion Service Club lunch, and it was great. It was great. It's just weird how stuff happens.

The games were coming on. So they had ESPN on the back. And the second speaker was up there and behind it was us getting walked off.

And our guys sat there and had to take that, and so the headache got a little -- it wasn't anybody's fault. These are the things that happen when you don't win. There it is, boys, we didn't get it done. And you can take one more look at it.

And the pitchers weren't stretching through the hitters. I asked the assistants. You ask the hitters what they want to do. We can go hit. We can not hit. Does hitting in the cage at this time of the year matter? It mattered to three guys that wanted to do it. The rest of them said we're good.

So the talk this morning was firm, and I talk to them before every game. We go over the starting pitcher -- tendencies of the team, top relievers -- and then I close it out and off we go.

So they knew. This is no fairytale here. You're either going to deliver the goods and go down the list of how you have to play correctly to win here, or you're not and you'll pack up.

So in a nutshell, that was part of it. And it's a tough reality, but it is a reality. Man, they came out, they were on it.

Q. What was the mood like this morning? Were they loose? Did they have a good warm-up? Did you feel like they were going to play one of their best games? What was your impression of how they were getting ready to go into this?

LINK JARRETT: Probably better than I expected at breakfast. Probably better than I expected. I had media from 7:45 to 8:30. And when I came back in, they were already in there. And it was okay. Better than I thought. And I can read the room fairly well. I think they were okay.

Now, the pregame, that was pretty good. I said, guys, you want to take ground balls during BP like you normally do. I don't care if we do our two-man fungo infield-outfield type. I don't care. You've earned my trust.

If you want to chill out eat your sandwich and get out of the sun and chill, I could care less. All I care about is, when it's 1:06 that you have your A game. So no in and out.

I could tell the BP was really good. The infield defense stuff, I hit the fungoes the whole time, they were on it. And the outfielders were moving around and moving into different positions. We have a lot of different spots we ask them to play. I saw them doing it. So they were really locked in.

Now, that can happen and you can still get your tail beat. But you could sense that the vibe and the focus was there.

Q. Going back to Dorsey for a minute here, I know it's been an interesting year for him, ups and downs. Feels like in the postseason, I know he had those two rough outings in the ACC tournament but --

LINK JARRETT: At Clemson? You were there, weren't you? Two grand slams in two days to the same guy.

Q. It was tough. To see what he's doing now, right, these three starts in a row in the postseason, just nails. How have you been able to get him there and how is he able to do this?

LINK JARRETT: Learning yourself and what it feels like. He's a talented kid. But Gulf Coast Community College, great. Tyler Younger great coach. Their guys are prepared.

But nobody's quite adept at this type of thing or some of those games until you've been in it a little bit. It's hard to feel how you might feel when you're on this stage, and the arm feels different, your body feels different, the adrenaline. It's new.

So maybe that had something to do with it. Mastering the pitches, and the breaking ball helps because, like Kershaw, the bigger kind of gets people off the riding fastball, the harder slider and change-up. If not, the change-up and the slider are almost the same speed. So that thing visually alters what the hitter sees and kind of feels and then the speed difference is big.

When you had Leiter, Arnold, Whittaker and we had Dorsey in the pen and Charles and others, it was different. So we were trying to use him out of the bullpen. So did we -- he said, Coach, I don't care, I just want to pitch and go to Omaha; that's what I want.

Some guys, when you talk about leverage relief -- starting, you throw once a week, you know when you throw your bullpen, you know when you lift twice, you know what condition you're doing, your flat ground. You know the day you can do PFP and the day you can't. It's a little more streamlined. So a lot of guys kind of enjoy that because it's easier.

So in the midst of what we had going early, when we had not lost a game for a third of the season and he was in relief, you saw the Clemson thing. It just worked out when Leiter went down that, hey, let's try this starting thing and maybe he can get more comfortable. And there have been some really, really good starts against some tough, tough, tough top national teams.

Q. When Woolfolk went out, how did the approach change with Savino coming in? I know you guys saw Savino in Charlotte. Did the approach change at all? And were you impressed with how quickly you adjusted to him?

LINK JARRETT: We have nine different things the hitters choose from to try to do when they're at the plate, nine things. It's not rocket science. You probably turn on TV tonight and watch a game here, the big leagues. They're probably doing similar stuff, but we try to work on that.

So what you need to grab as there's as many pitching changes as we've seen in these two games here, just different -- Woolfolk's fastball was hot. And those guys talked to each other early. It was 93, 94, but they're, that thing is riding as much as we've seen. I don't know what really happened.

But then Savino is more slice and dice and changeup and move it around. So it's a calibration of the feel of the fastball probably more than anything else. But the guys have taken to this and it allows you to go to a different golf club for the shot that you need to try to hit.

And these guys are -- like Jaime is starting to figure it out and Tibbs is figuring it out. Cam Smith, the development and use of some of these approaches makes the adjustment much easier when you know what mental button to push.

All seven of Florida State's official visitors will be leaving campus early on Sunday morning. As they depart and we get a chance to speak with them, their interviews will be uploaded to YouTube and posted in this thread here. As of right now Joshua Moore, Zaydrius Rainey-Sale, and Malik Clark are the only three in the building, with the others arriving later after breakfast.

Four-star LB Zaydrius Rainey-Sale traveled nearly 3,000 miles to Tallahassee for his official visit. And it didn't disappoint

Seminole sports is always more fun to watch when you do it with people who love it as much as you.

We'll have give aways throughout the game and a lot of fun. Come join us.

Glory Days Grill Game Watch

Time and time again this year, this FSU team has responded. It'll need to show that resolve again Sunday vs. UVA to keep its season alive.

Plus notes on a bizarre celebration injury Jamie Arnold pitched through Friday vs. Tennessee, Carson Dorsey getting the start in the elimination game and more.

Yes, the call was bad. Blake Burke swung. But there were quite a few uncharacteristic FSU mistakes on the bases and in the field, squandered chances at the plate and struggles on the mound that made that moment as big as it was and set the stage for more Omaha heartbreak for the Seminoles.

FSU allowed four runs in the bottom of the ninth, losing a 12-11 heartbreaker in its College World Series opener vs. Tennessee Friday night.

Last fall, Link Jarrett advocated to the NCAA that check-swing appeals should be reviewable. Last night, his FSU team fell victim to that exact situation in its College World Series vs. Tennessee. He's hopeful it will be made reviewable going forward.

FSU head coach Link Jarrett sat down with local media this afternoon. Here's the video of that interview, which discussed how the team has started to move past last night's loss, why he advocated for check swings to be reviewable last fall, Jamie Arnold's thumb injury and much more.

Jacob Marlowe, who transferred in from UCF to FSU last summer, didn't pitch at all this season after FSU's doctors discovered his childhood heart defect would require open-heart surgery in his initial exam. After a long recovery process, he's set to pitch for the Brewster Whitecaps in the Cape Cod League this summer.

A great story and another arm FSU will add in 2025.

Six athletes with ties to the Florida State swimming and diving teams will compete at the U.S. Olympic Trials.

Maddy Huggins and Mason Herbet will swim at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis from June 15-23 along with incoming freshman Logan Robinson and Lleyton Arnold. Samantha Vear and Katrina Young will compete in diving, running from June 17-23 in Knoxville, Tenn., at the Allan Jones Aquatic Center.

Huggins qualified for her second Olympic Trials in the 100-meter and 200 breast. She will compete in the 100 breast on June 16 and the 200 breast on June 19. Herbet will swim the 100 fly on June 21 and Robinson is entered in the 200 fly and Arnold in the 200 breast on June 18.

The top 16 swimmers from the heats will compete in semifinals and the top eight will race in finals. Qualifying heats will air live on Peacock and at 6:30 p.m. each day on USA Network. Finals will air at 8 p.m. on NBC and Peacock.

Young (2010-15), who will look to qualify for her third Olympics, starts competing on June 18 in the women’s 10-meter synchro. She will compete in the individual starting on June 21. Vear starts competing on 3-meter on June 20.

The top 18 from prelims will advance to semifinals and the top 12 will compete in the finals. Scores from each round will carry over.

NBC will present live coverage across NBC and Peacock.

For the first time in five years, it's a Florida State baseball gameday at the College World Series.

The Seminoles (47-15) begin their 24th CWS appearance in program history (third-most of any team) Friday night at 7 p.m. (ESPN) when they take on No. 1 overall seed Tennessee (55-12) at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Neb.

It's FSU's first trip here since 2019 and the first under second-year head coach Link Jarrett. However, Jarrett made three appearances here as an FSU player in the early 1990s and also led Notre Dame here in 2022 as head coach of the Irish.

FSU is 9-14 all-time in CWS openers and has won just two of its last nine opening games in Omaha dating back to 1996. However, it did win its opening game the last time here 1-0 vs. Arkansas and Jarrett also won his opening game here with ND in 2022, beating Texas 7-3.

On the other hand, it's the Volunteers third trip to Omaha in the last four years under head coach Tony Vitello. They lost their opening game of the CWS each of the last two trips.

FSU is expected to turn to sophomore ace Jamie Arnold (11-3, 2.77 ERA) to start its first game in Omaha. The left-handed pitcher has the best ERA of any starting pitcher in this year's CWS and has 155 strikeouts to 22 walks over his 100.2 innings this season. He'll have his hands full against a Tennessee offense that has hit 173 home runs this season (second most by any team in NCAA history), but he's handled some very talented offenses pretty well this season.

Culmination of Jamie Arnold's sophomore surge set for Friday night in Omaha​

Tennessee is taking a different pitching approach, electing to use an opener of sorts in redshirt senior righty Chris Stamos (3-0, 4.02 ERA). In two NCAA Tournament starts as an opener for the Volunteers vs. Northern Kentucky and Evansville, Stamos has allowed three runs on four hits over 1.2 innings. After his brief start that isn't expected to last past a few innings, Tennessee is expected to turn to junior RHP AJ Causey (13-3, 3.77 ERA), who has 117 strikeouts to 19 walks over 86 innings this season. He's thrown seven innings five times this season so he may pitch the rest of the way if FSU is struggling against him.

I'm here on the scene at Omaha and will be throughout FSU's CWS run. I'll have updates leading up to Friday's game as well as once it gets underway.

Here's the full video and transcript from the FSU press conference after tonight's 12-11 heartbreaking loss to Tennessee.

It got ended before I think a lot of us got the questions we wanted answered in, unfortunately. Hopefully we can talk to Link tomorrow.

An important note about Javion Hilson among others.
https://floridastate.rivals.com/news/reactions-from-fsu-targets-and-commits-on-ovs-to-other-programs

Florida State is hosting another crop of recruiting targets on campus this weekend. In case you missed it, here is the expected visitors list for this weekend:

https://floridastate.rivals.com/news/fsu-official-visitors-list-for-weekend-of-june-14

A late addition to the visitors list, defensive back Jaboree Antione who originally was supposed to come into town next weekend. He has been committed to LSU since January 27th but scheduled official visits to Miami and Florida State, the latter of which has been moved to this weekend.
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We will be posting arrival photos of each prospect as they arrive from breakfast this morning.

A look at some big names here:

LINK JARRETT: Proud of the team. Proud of these two. Proud of the program and what was accomplished this year. It was a difficult trek. The response from last year for this group to open the season and go one-third of the season without losing a game, pretty remarkable.

The schedule was difficult. The midweek stuff is such a challenge. You guys know what the league is about. They earned everything that they achieved. This is the pinnacle of the sport. You'll never see the sport played at the amateur level better than you're going to see it in this event. The age of the players, the physicality of the players, the ability for players like these two guys to find a home that suits what they're trying to do for their future, it's as good as you'll see.

The hospitality in Omaha, absolutely love it. It's building. Like I've seen it 34 years ago, and I was out here three times as a player, and it just continues to grow, and it has grown from 2022 to today. Watching this thing build, the energy and excitement and the field and the vibe of everything that surrounds this event puts it in the conversation with any other major sporting event you want to talk about: Augusta, the Final Four, Super Bowl. Just pick one, this matches it.

This weekend is awesome, and it's because of the community. It's because of guys like these two that have elevated the sport. It's because of the coverage that you guys provide that has made this a global event, and the college game has never been in a better position. How is that?

Q. You just finished up your first practice on that field. Tell me a little bit about the field, how you felt going out there, and then also how you keep it baseball when you are here?

DANIEL CANTU: The field is in great condition. The grass is a little bit different than Florida grass, but it plays a little slower. Maybe they'll cut it tomorrow, but we'll see.

It's been great. The field is pretty big, but nothing that we can't handle.

ALEX LODISE: Like he said, the outfield is very different dimensions than our home park. Right field is a lot deeper. We don't have the high fence. We'll just be able to adjust to it and play our best ball.

Q. I'll ask this to both of the players. What maybe is the biggest difference or two differences between last year's team and this year's team in terms of the struggles you guys had last year and the success that you have had this year?

DANIEL CANTU: We weren't a part of last year's team, but hearing what went on last year, we definitely wanted to come in and make a difference and help this team win and build a winning culture again and get back on track and back to the promise land in Omaha, and that's exactly what we did.

ALEX LODISE: Like he said, we were not here last year, but we know our team. We're just one big family. That's all Cam Leiter we are. One big family. We just go out and we just play like we all are a family and just have fun while we're doing it.

Q. For the players. I think I talked to Cam Leiter last summer pretty soon after he committed. He candidly said he wanted to come here to get Florida State to a College World Series. How much was that a selling point for you, and how quickly did you think this team could do that?

DANIEL CANTU: I saw what Coach Jarrett was building over here at FSU, and I wanted to be a part of it. He brought in some really great guys to get us back here, and we all -- he did a really great job helping blend this team together and help us create that team chemistry, and we created a great family chemistry, like Alex said.

Yeah, we built that and got a winning culture back at FSU, and we're here to stay, and we're here to win.

Q. Daniel and Alex, you were the first of eight teams to punch your ticket here. Was there anything you could scout on that you sat back and thought, okay, we can play these teams?

ALEX LODISE: We're a very confident bunch. We know we can play with the best. These are the seven other best teams in the country. We're here because we can compete with them, and we know that watching them -- when you watch other teams play, it's knowing, like, with our confidence we're here, and we know we're capable of playing.

DANIEL CANTU: Like Alex said, we are a very confident bunch. We feel as if we carry ourselves and feel as if we're the best in the country, and we know that we can beat anyone if we play our brand of baseball.

Q. For either one of you guys, what's it like playing for Coach Jarrett?

DANIEL CANTU: Coach Jarrett is like Pappa Bear and we're just his younglings. We follow his lead.

He does a really great job with really programming us and getting us all in line and just completing the task at hand each and every day and going out and winning -- going 1-0 each and every day and keeping us where our feet are in the moment and really just completing the task at hand. It's been a really great job. He's an amazing leader and an amazing coach. Very thankful to have this opportunity to play for him.

ALEX LODISE: He pretty much covered it. There's no other coach in the country that you want to go out to the field every day, and you see him as, all right, we're going to have a great practice. We know it's going to be structured well, and you just know what you are getting yourself into.

As infielders, there's no other coach in the country that I would rather learn defensive -- the defensive style from the infield from than Coach Jarrett.

Q. If you could maybe follow up, Daniel, just this is a program obviously that had such a great success last year. Did not work out the way it had intended to. Did Coach Jarrett tell you he thought he could get you back to Omaha this year, and what kind of role did you think you could have in helping a team get to this level?

DANIEL CANTU: Omaha is always the end goal, but he kept us -- him and all the other coaches kept us focused on just a one-game-at-a-time mentality and going to war each and every day we get to step on the field and not really looking ahead, but looking at what is exactly in front of us with that day, and we get to play that game and we win that game, and we go 1-0, and then the next day we go 1-0 and then the next day we go 1-0. Those wins just keep piling up, and that's how we got here.

ALEX LODISE: Yeah, I mean, he said it. You play every day just to win that game on that day. That's pretty much -- when you win one game every day, it's going to help you get here.

THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you very much.

Questions for Coach, please.

Q. Does your personal experience being here as a player and a coach kind of help you set up with your staff and your players to get them ready to be here for the whole week?

LINK JARRETT: 100%. How you feel as a player, I've got that. How you feel as a coach in it, I've got that. How you feel as a parent here, I actually have that too. Like, the 2021 deal.

So, yes. I try to go into that reserve and pull out what information I think really helps them, helps the coaches and actually helps the parents. I wanted the parents to have the timeline of what we're doing because you've waited your whole parental life to get to a moment where you can be here. So I want them to all learn from me, and I feel like my responsibility is to create the most seamless path for them to get to Friday when we start the actual game.

So that's what I try to do, and I do. I look at it from every possible angle, and there's very few -- I'm fortunate to have seen it from all of those angles.

Q. I think after the super regionals you talked about there being five facets that you sort of build a program on. How did you see maybe your team grow over the last year in those areas, and how did the new additions help you guys get where you wanted to go?

LINK JARRETT: Program development, big-picture stuff, big-picture facility, calendars, big stuff, alumni, that program, player development. What am I going to do with Cantu and Lodise every day that they're practicing and playing the game? Evaluation. Was Cantu the correct person when we evaluated him to bring into the program?

Recruitment. How do you convince these two guys to come to your school? You can evaluate better than anybody in the history of the sport; if you can't convince the right people to come to Florida State, then it doesn't matter how well you evaluate.

Then you have to manage the game.

So what I've done today is really all of those. Program development is what I'm doing with you. Recruiting, our staff all morning. You can like the transfer stuff or not. The fact that we're trying to make these decisions and you are talking to players and they're calling you and trying to figure out how did the visit go last week, that's happening right now.

So all of this is in play to get to the game. When you think of, hey, you're a baseball coach, I think most people think of what happens from -- what time is our game? 6:07? The coach is coaching them up. They're playing baseball.

When you start in this industry, you really don't know that those five things are equally critical. If you are good at all five, you have a chance to be in this room. If you are good at four, it's up for grabs whether you'll make it. If you are good at two or three, probably not here.

So I try to dive in. I've been a lot of places. I try to dive in. When you get somewhere, what do you have to attack and fix in each one of those areas to try to get it right? Those are the five.

In this day and age, to add 26 players I think we added, that was an interesting -- I saw a little graph today of the players, but the combination of some of the junior college players that are clearly older, these guys that are a little older and more experienced, to be able to throw that in the pot with the guys that were back with us that had some grooming from last year and galvanized a little bit, that's -- those are the five things all in play.

Q. How does this Tennessee offense this season compare to the one you faced in 2022?

LINK JARRETT: It's probably not far off, is it? It's not. Damaging, threatening, physical, intense, balanced. Just pick whatever you want, man. I mean, I know what we're walking into, and I know what we walked into in 2022.

I told the guys, and I'll tell them again: Once the game starts, it doesn't know. So our stats, their stats, the game doesn't know what's supposed to happen. You have to go manage and take charge of the game. There will be opportunities for that game to go one way or another. Either you're bringing your A stuff in the A moment or you're not, and the pendulum, it will go one way or another.

I know how good they are. They're unbelievable, unbelievably talented. This is a little bit of Clash of the Titans. I think our team, emotional team. This is an emotional group. Sometimes that emotion, we've seen it spill over a little bit where the guys hit a home run, the excitement, the punch-out. What you're going to see, I don't think we've ever seen it before. This Clash of the Titans, it's going to be exciting. People are looking forward to this. Our guys are looking forward to it. I know the Tennessee crowd is thrilled. I've seen how passionate they are. I think we have the best fans in the world, the pitch-by-pitch engagement.

This is top-of-the-food-chain stuff.

Q. It's a little bit of a weird schedule where you get an off day after you pitch. How do you set up your staff going forward in this tournament?

LINK JARRETT: Arnold will go, and then you're going to use some relievers you would think at some point in this thing. Maybe not. It would be great if we didn't.

But then you get to rest. So you can recalibrate guys that you may not be able to do so in back-to-back days of competition like this. So it's really neat. Again, I keep telling you, this is the best you're going to see the game played ever at this level. It hasn't been played better than this. You're also going to see that continue because the dynamic relievers that throw some but not too much, they're going to be right back out there.

So it's really neat. It's different. It's different. The number of guys that you use throughout the course of an ACC or an SEC weekend or a regional tournament or super regional, it may not get to that if things go really well for you. If your starter can get you some length and a reliever will get you to the finish line, if you can repeat that script, it might even be the same couple of relievers. Then how quickly can a starter within the realm of health and reality come back? All of those things are different here.

It's good, and it probably allows for even a better type of baseball.

Q. Link, you talked about Jamie. He has been incredibly consistent. A few of his best starts have been against some of the better offenses you have faced this season. I guess what about him -- does it seem like he rises to the occasion a lot? How have you seen his mentality on the mound evolve this year?

LINK JARRETT: His mentality has matured. He's matured in day-to-day work, realizing the trajectory and the potential. We had a serious heart-to-heart. Chuck and I sat down with him about halfway through last year. I wrote what I thought were the top left-handed arms looking forward to next year's draft. I just did it. Here we go. There's what we see right now. You either want to be in that conversation, and I don't know what to tell you the other side of this board is. I didn't write anything on it because there's nothing to write. You're either going to go in this direction or you'll go -- just to try to make him understand how good he could be at this.

The day-to-day arm care, strength and conditioning, conditioning, pitch shaping, flat groundwork, PFP work. When you start, you have six other days to manage the rest of your craft.

So I think just the maturity of ownership in all of that versus when you are excited to go out and throw and it's fun and it's Friday afternoon and here we go, there's more to it if you really want to be the best. 18-year-old kids don't really know all that yet. That's what they need us for to push them, and you have the support with Phil, the trainer, Jamie, the strength coach. Micah does a great job pitching management day-to-day stuff.

Use those resources, but the individual still has to own it and attack it and do it every single day with some intent and some energy. And he's done it. So then when he walks out there, you're starting to see a more physical kid, a more confident kid, a more determined kid. Fastball slider, the changeup is coming along. When do you use that changeup? I don't know. It seems like the fastball plays so well. Are you doing somebody a favor when you flip a changeup in there? It's a tricky piece to try to inject in there. We talk about it, work on it.

There's still more. But the growth and maturity and the outings have been really good. The matchup, sometimes you think with him, wow, that's a tough matchup, and he absolutely carves, and then other times it looks like a good matchup, and it's more of a dogfight from pitch one than you would think.

It's just part of it, but the maturity, the growth, the thoughtfulness of what he does, that's what stands out to me the most.

Q. The college baseball and Florida State community lost Mike Martin earlier this year. How does his legacy and how is it -- how is it personified on this team?

LINK JARRETT: I can hear his voice, and it probably talks to me more than any other athletically-minded voice could ever speak to me. Like, you hear a lot of people talk, and you think about things, and I've had other great coaches around me in my time, but I played for him, and I can hear his voice talk to me as a player. I can hear his voice talk to me as a young coach when I coached with him for one season.

I can hear his voice talking to his family.

So I learned so many different things from what is just a remarkable human being. He's an amazing person in my life. He was like a second father figure to me, and the times on the field and learning and the foundation of how to play the game at the college level, the college game is different. It's not Major League Baseball. This is different. It's not high school baseball.

Each one of those worlds has its own feel to it. Then there's recruiting and other things that go into it, but my foundation was laid in a lot of those areas by him, and I hear his voice. I hear his voice in games of thinking through maneuvers and bullpen management and defensive things and offensive parts of the game.

Then you have to evolve with your personality and style from your foundation and you're building off of what you learn initially. And then I'm different than -- there's only one of him. There's only one. I'm very fortunate to have been around him a lot, and I got to spend some time with him and some days where the decline was rapid, and I'm very fortunate that I did that. I can hear his voice in every different walk of my being. It's an important voice.

Q. With 11 in mind and what you talked about earlier, all the different angles that you have had as a player, coach, and as a dad, what are the major insights you pull out? What do you communicate to the different teams you bring here, and how do you communicate it?

LINK JARRETT: Well, when you talked about pitching -- if you start with baseball, pitching, defense, and base running. Then when you are playing, you are, like, hey, man, I want to hit too. When you look at it now, he knew if you could pitch, play defense, and run the bases, you were going to be in every single game. Every single game.

Offensively, to go further, you have to figure out a way against the type of arms that we're going to deal with here. You'll have to figure out a way to scratch and claw and score. But the fundamental of pitching, defense, and base running, I can hear him say. You talk about voice. I can hear pitching, defense, and base running, that's what this is about.

I know why that was the case. So you can start with that. Now, I talk about 11 a lot, and part of the room that we have, which the tradition room, I have a TV that's dedicated solely to his story and his accolades and his life, and Carol is on there, when you go in there and push play, it will tell you the whole story.

So it's that important to me and to that program that we have one-fourth of the space dedicated to him and what he did there. That's going to stay right there. So everybody that walks in -- you want to walk in and hear it? There it is. And it runs. It's running. Like, he is on there, and his picture is there.

Now, I want to win it for him. Like, why as a player couldn't I get it done? It keeps me up. What did I not do? What were we not doing that kept us from that? Part of the reason the five program pieces, I was so determined to figure out myself what I needed to do to get it done here, did I ever think I would be sitting here coaching it? No. You don't think that that's going to happen. You really don't, but I owe it to the program, him, to figure out how to finish it.

So that's the messaging. Our guys were thrilled. Like, we're sitting there in the room, and I told them: When we walk out of this room and you get on that plane, there's 400 people standing along the sides of the bus. You're going to walk through that, and this will never be the same. Like, it's never -- so when we get up and leave, you're going to feel differently the moment you open that locker room door and off you go and here it starts.

In that corner in the cabinet trophy case there there's something missing. So I'm not happy to walk out through the people. That probably doesn't come off right. I'm happy to walk through to come where we are trying to take that bus and that plane, but I'm not happy with the result that I've had. So what do we do when we walk out of that room to enjoy those moments, but try to make sure that the result for us is just a little bit better and gets us that final trophy that is not sitting in that cabinet over there?

That is what all of that means to me and what I need to accomplish here to really feel that I've completed this.

I absolutely love this time of the year, because we get to see the coaches, players, recruits, camp Hidden Gem. From all the videos, tweets, YouTube videos and that is CMN is THE guy. His charisma, confidence and just pure ole genuineness he brings daily. He shows Bobby B type hospitality and includes all recruits family or friends on visit.

As a coach he is going to continue to grow. The man is 40 yrs old. He is extremely smart. The way he works the portal, player retention, development that will begin to allow us to reload each yr or get the plug play we need. Blink and boom and he has assembled some filthy talent on both sides, K warms up 60 yd out.

I knew if he got the shot and time to install his family first culture, philosophies, standards, and accountability coupled with total buy in on facilities, NIL program. In return he showed his loyalty to FSU, coaches, players, recruits by shutting it down. That made a bigger impact than many realize. It’s been a long time coming, and no one wants that, hence the snub. Snub didn’t do anything but awaken something in Norvell that’s gonna be fun to watch. Leave no doubt!