Link Jarrett shares how unique setup at Notre Dame helped him grow as coach

New Florida State baseball coach Link Jarrett brings plenty proven experience to the job, including a knowledge of the ACC and its members from his previous stop at Notre Dame. After leading the Fighting Irish to regular season and NCAA Tournament success in recent years, the former Seminoles short stop returned home to lead one of the sport’s bluebloods.

Jarrett has become known for his well-structured practice sessions and attention to detail in the preparation process before each game. That trait has already stood out at Florida State, sparking questions about where the mentality came from.

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“I would say I’ve always been fairly detailed with what I’m doing,” said Jarrett. “I will say that at Notre Dame, when you share an indoor facility with five other teams, you have such a limited amount of space and time. It probably heightened my sense of monitoring the time and the details of what you plan because when our time was up in the indoor facility we didn’t step outside until we played down here.

“You had to organized, because when the time expired, your practice was over. It didn’t matter if you got through your practice or not, the lacrosse team was on the field and your time was up. So that probably took a detail guy and made him hyper-detailed because, quite frankly, you can’t run out of time because you’ve got pitchers that have to throw, you have at-bats that you need, you have repetitions that you have to check the boxes in. And I think the experience at Notre Dame probably made me even more detailed and probably better.”

More about Link Jarrett joining Florida State

The Florida State athletics department had to tread lightly in the search for its new head baseball coach as top candidate Link Jarrett took Notre Dame through the NCAA Tournament.

“Our pathway to try to get to Omaha was the most difficult any team could experience in the postseason, this happened here, an hour before I had my scouting report team meeting to go play Friday night in Knoxville,” Jarrett said. “I sensed, at that time, what might be coming. I was not going to speak to anyone during our team’s run. Michael (Alford) was gracious enough to allow the completion of our season.”

The Seminoles announced the 50-year-old would take over for former head coach Mike Martin Jr. after Notre Dame fell in the CWS.

Jarrett took over at Notre Dame in 2020 after a successful run at UNC Greensboro. He built an 86-32 record with his team over three seasons and made a Super Regional in 2021 before the College World Series appearance in 2022.

In 2021, Jarrett earned National Coach of the Year honors from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.