Florida State looks to get College World Series started off on right foot against No. 1 Tennessee

There are obviously going to be some nerves on Friday night.

It’s only natural.

The College World Series is unlike any other environment in the sport. The crowd is bigger. The game means more. The history, the tradition, the pressure. It’s all there.

And maybe nobody understands that better than Florida State head coach Link Jarrett, whose team takes on No. 1 seed Tennessee on Friday night at 7 p.m. ET (ESPN).

***ALSO SEE: FSU’s Jamie Arnold 1-on-1 interview with Warchant’s Jeff Cameron

“How you feel as a player, I’ve got that,” said Jarrett, who played in the CWS three times as the FSU starting shortstop. “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 (with his son a member of the N.C. State team).

“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.”

The one angle he hasn’t seen is what it’s like to hold the trophy at the end of the College World Series.

And make no mistake, that’s what the Seminoles are out there to do.

Yes, they made an incredible turnaround from last year’s historically bad season to get to Omaha, but that in no way, shape or form means Florida State is just happy to be in Omaha.

The Seminoles believe they can win this whole thing.

“We’re a very confident bunch,” said starting shortstop Alex Lodise. “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.”

Said starting first baseman Daniel Cantu: “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.”

They especially believe they can beat anyone in the country when they have their ace on the mound.

Jarrett confirmed on Thursday that sophomore lefty Jamie Arnold will be getting the ball against the Volunteers.

Tennessee, which relies mainly on a bevy of arms out of the bullpen, will start Chris Stamos, who has pitched 31.1 innings this year and has a 4.02 ERA.

“Arnold will go, and then you’re going to use some relievers you would think at some point in this thing,” Jarrett said. “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.”

Jarrett isn’t being hyperbolic either.

With the collection of teams in Omaha, and more importantly, the amount of supremely talented players on each of those rosters, and with the advanced age of most of the starters, he genuinely believes this could be the most talented, deepest, best College World Series field there’s ever been.

To that point, Florida State (James Tibbs, Cam Smith) and Tennessee (Christian Moore, Billy Amick) both have two players listed in the top 25 of MLB Draft prospects by both MLB.com and Baseball America. And there are scores of other early-round draft picks littered all over these rosters.

“This is the pinnacle of the sport,” Jarrett said. “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 (Lodise, Cantu) to find a home that suits what they’re trying to do for their future, it’s as good as you’ll see.”

And what he’d love to see – more than anything, of course – is his team dogpiling on the mound a week and a half from now. For himself, sure. But for the program. For the fans. For the players.

And most of all, as he has said before and said again on Thursday afternoon, for Mike Martin, Sr. and the program he built.

“(We are going to) 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,” Jarrett said of the tradition room inside Dick Howser Stadium. “That is what all of that means to me and what I need to accomplish here to really feel that I’ve completed this.”

*Talk about this story with other die-hard Florida State baseball fans in the FSU Baseball Forum*