What FSU coach Link Jarrett said about returning to Notre Dame

At this time last year, Link Jarrett was the head coach of one of the best baseball teams in the country. He had the Notre Dame Fighting Irish pointed at another deep run in the NCAA Tournament — one that would ultimately end in Omaha.

Now Jarrett is at the helm of the floundering 14-25 Florida State Seminoles while Notre Dame (23-16, 11-10 ACC) is once again positioning itself for a postseason bid under the watchful eye and direction of first-year head coach Shawn Stiffler. FSU has only won 5 ACC games in 21 tries and is in severe danger of snapping a streak of 44-straight NCAA Tournament appearances. The Noles have never finish a season with a losing record, either. Barring a monumental turnaround, that’ll happen for the first time ever in Jarrett’s first season.

And yet, Jarrett is still at peace with it all. He’s where he’s supposed to be.

Florida State is Jarrett’s alma mater. He was a star infielder there in the 1990s. He made it to the College World Series three times in his playing career and was twice an All-American (1993 and 1994). Tallahassee will always be home to Jarrett. But South Bend, Ind., the place where unrivaled success made it possible for him to return to the Sunshine State, will always hold a special place in his heart, too.

“As you coach long enough, you will encounter some of these moments,” Jarrett told local reporters in a Zoom call Thursday. “I think this one might be as unique as any I’ve clearly been a part of but even further maybe heard of.”

Jarrett returns with FSU pitching coach Chuck Ristano, a 12-year veteran of the Notre Dame baseball coaching staff. Ristano married his wife, Lizzy, in the shadow of the Golden Dome in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Notre Dame’s campus. Lizzy was an associate coach for the Notre Dame softball team.

With Jarrett and Ristano leading the way, Notre Dame went 86-32 from 2020-22. The .729 winning percentage was the second best in the country during that span. Notre Dame went to the 2021 Starkville Super Regional and lost in three games to eventual national champion Mississippi State, and in 2022 the Irish reached the CWS for just the third time in program history.

Jarrett made the Irish program his own for three years. And it worked as well as it ever has in South Bend. Even though it’s been less than a year since he said goodbye to it all, nostalgia will still hit hard.

“It will be unique to walk out onto the field, the field that I kind of redid the turf, redid the bullpens, the cages, the graphics, the dugouts — really, all of it,” Jarrett said. “To walk back in after you’ve been away for a while and take a look at what this actually looks like, it will be unique on a lot of layers. There is no way around it.”

Of course, then there are the Notre Dame players themselves.

“We built that roster,” Jarrett said. “You had a hand in recruiting all of these guys. There are 11 grads on that roster.”

Outside of a ring ceremony this past November, Jarrett has not corresponded with any of his former players since he went to Florida State. He’s adamant about focusing on where he is now.

“What will it be like this weekend? I’m sure there will be some handshakes. Maybe an occasional hug,” Jarrett said. “Some of those parents, our wives sat through — you can’t imagine some of the things we had to go through traveling and playing and the postseason places we were stuck. There was quite a bond there for that period of time with everybody trying to survive the antics of Starkville, Knoxville, Georgia Southern and Omaha. There is a lot. I’m sure there will be an emotional side of it.”

As there should be. What Jarrett was the mastermind behind for three years is worthy of more than just some handshakes and an occasional hug.