Player caliber, note-taking, timeliness: What Notre Dame baseball coach Shawn Stiffler has learned in postseason environments

Notre Dame head baseball coach Shawn Stiffler is about to embark on the most important job he’s ever had. The 43-year-old Pennsylvania native has been coaching college baseball for around two decades. He’s not new to the game.

But he is new to this stage. Sort of.

Notre Dame may be the former VCU head coach’s first Power Five job, but he’s seen his fair share of big-time, consequential and hostile environments. He’s often conquered them, as Irish athletic director Jack Swarbrick noted in his remarks at Thursday’s press conference introducing Stiffler.

VCU’s 2015 run under Stiffler was historic, as the team had never made it past the Regional round of an NCAA Tournament until that point. The Rams advanced to the Coral Gables Super Regional by going 3-1 in the Dallas Regional, beating No. 14 overall seed Dallas Baptist twice and topping Oregon State in another contest. Stiffler’s team went 0-2 against Miami once they arrived at the Super Regional, but history had already been made for the Rams.

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VCU made it back to the NCAA Tournament in 2021 and 2022. Stiffler’s team had to play in one of the more difficult stadiums in the country at Mississippi State two seasons ago, and they headed just one state south this most recent season to play in the Chapel Hill Regional. The Rams won their first two games against UNC and Georgia before ultimately falling to the Tar Heels in Games 3 and 4 of pool play.

So what have situations like the 2015 Coral Gables Super Regional and 2021 appearance at Mississippi State taught Stiffler?

“It tells you that you’re not that far off,” Stiffler said Thursday. “It’s just the depth and a few (missing) pieces. You realize the caliber of player you need.”

Stiffler was able to pull talent to Richmond in a relatively baseball-rich area along the East Coast, but the elite players were often headed to the blue bloods of college baseball. The Irish aren’t quite at that level, but with the direction the program is trending, Stiffler will be able to attract some high-level talent to South Bend.

The new head coach added a couple more concrete lessons he internalized during three postseason trips at the helm of the Rams program.

“I’m an avid note taker,” Stiffler added. “Every time I go to an NCAA Regional, I try to take notes on how we can do it better logistically, travel-wise, all of those things to take stress off the players.”

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A well-traveled head coach is a must at Notre Dame, as the Irish play one of the more rigorous away schedules in the country. In addition to beginning the season in the Southeast thanks to the Indiana weather, Notre Dame travels up and down the Eastern Seaboard in conference play, from Boston College to Miami.

Stiffler has also learned it takes a strong pitching unit and an impermeable defense to advance past the initial round in the NCAA Tournament. Sound familiar? That’s because pitching and defense were focuses for former head coach Link Jarrett, and Stiffler plans to continue down that path.

“I believe to win at the level that this group has been at the last couple of years, you have to win 5-1, 4-2,” Stiffler added. “It’s very hard to out-slug people and those type of arms late in the season.”

It’s clear the young head coach has absorbed a lot over the last decade of head coaching, but he knows a postseason game often ultimately comes down to an opportune at bat or two. That’s up his players. He just wants to put them in a position to make it happen.

“If you can control what you can control on your side of the baseball, you’ll (give) yourself an opportunity to have that timely hit,” Stiffler said. “At that point, when it gets late in the year, you’re kind of sitting back and letting everything you’ve done all year shine through.”