(Photo via Gators baseball, Twitter)
Oh, where do I even attempt to begin a eulogy of one of the craziest Gators baseball teams of all time?
I guess the plain, basic facts are a good place to start. One of the wildest seasons in Gator baseball history came to a disappointing close Wednesday night in the College World Series semifinals at the hands of the #3 Texas A&M Aggies– a team the Gators beat two out of three back in March. Florida was given the advantage of being the home team in this one, but the Aggies jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first and only tightened their grip from there, beating the Gators 6-0 to end their season– as well as the unparalleled college career of two-way star Jac Caglianone.A deep-dive eulogy of the 2024 Gators baseball team: one of the wildest, most frustrating, most thrilling, and most unforgettable teams of all time.
That, though, is an insultingly hollow way to describe what happened in Omaha, NE on Wednesday night– and all that happened to lead the Gators there. Playing their second game of the day after bad weather pushed what was supposed to be the Gators’ first elimination game against Kentucky back to Wednesday morning, the rogue, thrilling locomotive roller coaster that Kevin O’Sullivan’s team rode to the Final Four of college baseball for the second straight year finally ran out of fuel. And as its engine finally perished from fuel starvation, reality set in: that roller coaster ride really is over.
But Gator baseball is forever changed because of it.
On the heels of coming up one game short of the program’s second national title last June, Florida opened the 2024 season with a puzzling loss to St. John’s in Gainesville. Thus began a dizzying sine wave of results.
That stray loss didn’t really do any damage by itself, and over the next two weeks Florida seemed to have successfully rebounded from that result, winning eight of their next ten– including taking two out of three in the always-momentous rivalry series against Miami in Coral Gables. As such, the Gators remained ranked in the top ten even after losing a midweek game at home to Stetson.
But then signs started rolling in that those early losses weren’t anomalies. Florida lost another midweek game– this time to Central Florida– and needed an extra-inning win over St. Mary’s just to hold on and win that series. Two days after surviving that series, the Gators self-destructed in a 12-8 loss to rival FSU on its home turf.
True to form, the Gators quickly shook off that rough stretch to take the Texas A&M series, and with that, the roller coaster departed from the platform and was off and running with a stupefying array of highs and lows.
The highs were pretty high, making for some great memories. Thanks to a Jac Caglianone walkoff homer in the rubber match, the Gators stole a series victory from a Mississippi State team that many thought got snubbed out of a top 16 national host spot. Florida also pulled off a daring nighttime robbery in Baton Rouge over LSU in extra innings to even that series, paving the way for Caglianone to go full Jactani mode and dominate the series finale both on the mound and at the plate. Those two series wins, along the league-opening series win against Texas A&M, were such standout data points that they themselves kept the Gators within striking distance of the NCAA Tournament throughout the struggles that followed.
In fact, thanks to those series wins, the Gators’ metrics– such as RPI, KPI, and schedule strength– read like those of a top ten, maybe top fifteen team. There was just one problem. In order to reach the NCAA Tournament as an at-large selection, a team has to have a winning record. And Florida had lost a lot of games down the stretch– so many, in fact, that it became a question of if the Gators would even qualify.
Because those lows were unfathomably low for a team with Florida’s expectations. A wave of head-scratching losses rolled over the program in the ensuing days and weeks, including two mercy-rule blowout losses to FSU to hand the Seminoles their first sweep of the Gators since 2002, another midweek loss to an inferior team in Jacksonville, a frustrating home series loss to a mediocre South Carolina team, and a mind-numbing series loss to Kentucky in which the Gators were in complete control of all three games late, and yet managed to squander two of them.
But the ultimate ignobility, the true low point of this season, came in early April in Columbia, MO. On the home turf of a Missouri Tiger squad that went a paltry 6-21 against all other SEC teams, the Gators were summarily swept by the worst team in the SEC, losing all three games by a single run. The disastrous trip was punctuated by the Gators blowing a 10-8 lead in the bottom of the ninth after they’d rallied back from an early 7-1 deficit in the finale to complete the hat trick.
And that felt like it could wreak insurmountable damage upon the Gators baseball season. The sweep at the hands of Missouri became the first of five straight SEC series losses for Florida. What was once a promising 6-3 SEC record imploded into a horrifying 11-16 conference mark as things came off the rails.
Over the next month, whatever could go wrong, did go wrong.
A laundry list of different pitchers, ranging from the true freshmen from which growing pains are understandable to the usually reliable closer Brandon Neely, would frequently lose command of their pitches with either little or no warning; one of the consequences of this was that Cade Fisher, who flashed a ton of promise in 2023 and was tabbed as Florida’s #1 starter to start the year, was effectively demoted to a bullpen role. Due in large part to a team-wide inability to execute sacrifice bunts, move runners over, and manufacture runs, the Gators really struggled to hit with runners on base. And then there were the miscellaneous issues.
Florida lost one game to Kentucky because left fielder Tyler Shelnut lost sight of a routine fly ball late in the contest, allowing what would become the winning runs to score. Florida lost another game to South Carolina because Cade Fisher picked off a baserunner and created a rundown, but Caglianone misfired on his throw to second, paving the way for a five-run avalanche in the ninth inning in what eventually became a 10-3 loss. Florida lost one game to Arkansas, 2-1, because Hagen Smith and Gabe Gaeckle buzz-sawed them on a combined three-hitter; the very next day, Florida went back to the park and banged out ten hits and created a 4-1 lead in the seventh, only for the bullpen to implode and surrender the lead in a 6-5 loss.
The frustrations really boiled over after the Kentucky series. The Wildcat dugout spent the weekend incessantly yapping at the Gators, even to the point where Caglianone publicly berated them for “all their nonsense that they do” after the Gators blew the finale. And there were a lot more frustrations inside the baseball facilities that never saw the light of day.
Everything was going wrong. Nothing was going right. And everything came down to the final weekend of the regular season.
Smack-dab in a tailspin, Florida traveled to Athens with their season verifiably on the line. A series win over Georgia would just about guarantee the Gators a spot in the NCAA Tournament with a winning record secured and sky-high metrics. When Georgia took the opener, the ultimatum became clear: win the next two games on the road against a top 10 rival, or forever be labeled as the most colossal disappointment in school history and miss the NCAA Tournament for the first time under Kevin O’Sullivan. And they’d have to do tht without star outfielder Ty Evans, who was lost for the season crashing into the wall against Kentucky the week before.
That was the adversity-filled path that awaited this team on May 17, 2024. They could have called it a season and packed it in. Instead, they didn’t back down, and pushed on.
Florida erased a 4-2 deficit in the eighth on a Cade Kurland two-run homer to send the game to extra innings. In the tenth, Luke Heyman clobbered what turned out to be the game-winning three-run homer. And the Gators crushed Georgia the ensuing day, 19-11, to take the series and clinch postseason eligibility.
But the ride didn’t stop there.
Selected as the 3-seed in Oklahoma State’s Regional, the Gators baseball team opened the NCAA Tournament with a 5-2 win over Nebraska. But when they were crushed 7-1 by Oklahoma State, the ultimatum became clear: win the next three games (one over Nebraska and two true road games against #11 Oklahoma State), or bow out of the postseason earlier than anybody could have predicted in their worst nightmares back in February.
That was the adversity-filled path that awaited this team on June 2, 2024. They could have called it a season and packed it in. Instead, they didn’t back down, and pushed on.
Florida ripped Nebraska apart in the Regional 1-1 game and then shocked Oklahoma State in front of their home crowd by beating them twice, 5-2 and 4-2, to advance to the Super Regionals. Along the way, Ashton Wilson– who prior to this Regional as better known as the son of an Orlando pastor than a Gator baseball player– emerged from the depths of Florida’s bench to become a star, banging out nine hits to earn Regional MVP honors. Despite seemingly having no pitching left, Florida got enough outs from young pitchers Frank Menendez and Jake Clemente to get the game to Fisher Jameson, who then turned it over to Brandon Neely, who then finished the deal. And that wild weekend was capped by perhaps the greatest photoshoot ever staged in the Oklahoma State bookstore.
But the ride didn’t stop there.
Game one of the Super Regionals at Clemson began about as badly as it could have, as Liam Peterson couldn’t even make it out of the second inning. At that point, it felt like the Gators had gone about as far as they could have. When the Gators fell behind 3-0 in the second inning, the ultimatum became clear: dig yourselves out of the hole and have the bullpen to step in and bail you out in a long relief form once again, or fall behind 0-1 in the best of three series– which historically has a 78% fatality rate– and thus be relegated to a team that flashed its talent here and there, but ultimately failed to achieve the annual goal of making it to Omaha.
That was the adversity-filled path that awaited this team on June 8, 2024. They could have called it a season and packed it in. Instead, they didn’t back down, and pushed on.
Florida roared back to win that game 10-7 on the strength of a three-run Caglianone homer that highlighted a seven-run fifth inning and another spectacular tag-team effort by Fisher Jameson and Brandon Neely. The following day, the Gators baseball team won perhaps the greatest game in the history of college baseball when Michael Robertson delivered a 13th-inning walkoff to send the Gators back to Omaha.
In itself, that would have been an acceptable point for this team’s journey to end. College baseball is the most unpredictable of all college sports, even more so than the single-elimination basketball tournament, because there’s so much more luck and randomness involved. Seasons can be and have been decided by a gust of wind, a lucky or unlucky bounce, and just so many other miscellaneous factors out of players’ control. So it’s never truly fair to demand a national championship, as too many strange things tend to happen at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha for chalk to reliably hold and the best teams to advance through the bracket. All you can reasonably demand from a team is to get there, and then just hope for the best.
But the ride didn’t stop there.
Because indeed, we saw exactly that kind of luck go against Florida in the Gators’ opening game of the College World Series. Cade Kurland hit what would have been a go-ahead two run homer in the ninth inning in most other ballparks in America, but in the ultra-deep Charles Schwab Field, it simply ran out of diesel power and died in Jace LaViolette’s glove on the back end of the warning track. When Texas A&M won that game 3-2, the ultimatum became clear: win four games in a row, or the season would be over.
That was the adversity-filled path that awaited this team on June 17, 2024. They could have called it a season and packed it in. Instead, they didn’t back down, and pushed on.
Backed against the wall yet again, Florida rallied back against the odds once more. Caglianone tied Matt LaPorta’s school record with a three-run homer that proved to make all the difference against NC State, a 5-4 win in which Brandon Neely came back onto the field to close out. Two days later, Florida faced Kentucky in the 1-1 game, with the winner headed to the national semifinals (where they’d have to beat Texas A&M twice) and the loser going home.
It turned out to be the stage for the final thrilling memory to be made on this roller coaster ride. Caglianone and the Gators got the ultimate payback on the Wildcats for their dugout’s shenanigans, not only ending their best season in program history, but rubbing it in their faces with one final blast off of Caglianone’s historic bat— in a game that was already 14-4– that broke LaPorta’s record with career home run number 75 and officially anointed him as the greatest Gators baseball player ever. And that sent Florida to the national semifinals.
Ultimately, the 2024 Gator baseball team was done in by the same issues that turned the regular season from one of the most highly anticipated years in recent memory into one of the most underwhelming. The lack of situational hitting with runners in scoring position– which included leaving the bases loaded once and two additional innings in which two runners were stranded– combined with Liam Peterson just never finding the strike zone was too much to overcome. Florida’s wildly unpredictable roller coaster ride had finally run out of gas and come to a stop.
Then, finality began to hit.
Players stayed on the field and in the dugout for some time, soaking in their final moments with their teammates, and in many cases– like for Caglianone, Dale Thomas, Brandon Neely, Tyler Shelnut, and more– their final moments in Gators baseball jerseys. There were tears from some players, of course. Others remained locked in place with looks of steely resolution. Still others were milling around, consoling their teammates.
The sadness is understandable, of course, but at the end of the day, this Gators baseball team will be the ultimate tale of “don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
And by “it happened,” I mean the fact that this Gators baseball program is forever changed by what this one team did.
Sure, there were thirteen journeys to Omaha by preceding Gators baseball teams. But almost all of those journeys ran through Gainesville and the friendly confines of McKethan Stadium (and one through its successor, Condron Ballpark). Four of those thirteen trips to the College World Series resulted in a clean 0-2 sweep out of Omaha, and a fifth ended in an underwhelming 1-2 bouncing.
And though the Gators baseball program has reached nine national semifinals, never before has a Florida team had to win so many games as a road underdog to get there– with many of them being many elimination games. Winning five straight games outside the state of Florida and four straight road games against top 16 national seeds in the NCAA Tournament is unprecedented for the Gators baseball program– primarily because Florida usually does enough in the regular season that it doesn’t make itself have to do that.
Which is pretty much the point.
In the end, none of those growing pains this team went through on its unconventional route to college baseball’s Final Four will be what this team is remembered for. All the adversity, all the frustration, all the trials and tribulations, and all the… well, losses, are thrown to the footnotes section of this chapter in Gators history. It didn’t matter how they got there: this Gators baseball team had achieved the goal that every Gators baseball team strives for.
To play in the national semifinals is a benchmark that any college team, in any sport, other than Patty Gasso’s Oklahoma softball program or John Wooden’s UCLA basketball program, is thrilled with. To be able to claim you were among the last four teams standing in your sport is a statement that commands attention and respect when history is told. It’s not the ultimate goal, no. Surely there’s disappointment that the ultimate goal was not achieved. But it’s enough to be able to declare a season successful.
And from the opening loss to St John’s, up through the very game before that national semifinal against Kentucky, that benchmark was it doubt. But it’s canon now, and alters the conversation about both this particular Gators baseball team and the program as a whole.
No longer is the conversation one of how disappointing the team was, what a letdown the season was, how Florida had wasted the final year of Caglianone’s legendary career, or even the eye-roll-worthy question about if Kevin O’Sullivan past his prime. Now it’s a story of redemption.
Tyler Shelnut’s misplay on a fly ball against Kentucky and .261 average for the season was overwritten by his three clutch homers in the NCAA Tournament; his rough day at the plate in the second game at Clemson was overwritten by his 13th inning single that ultimately made him the winning run on Robertson’s walk-off. That’s how he’ll be remembered.
Cade Fisher’s demotion from the Friday night starter to the bullpen was overwritten by his clutch performances against Oklahoma State and NC State that allowed Florida to stave off elimination and advance deeper into the tournament. That’s how he’ll be remembered.
Dale Thomas’s .225 average and bunting struggles were overwritten by his critical sacrifice bunt in game two against Clemson that set up the Robertson walk-off. That’s how he’ll be remembered.
Pierce Coppola’s struggles upon his return from surgery were overwritten by a pair of season-saving starts against Nebraska and Kentucky, getting deep enough into the games while keeping the opposing bats at bay long enough to save the bullpen and allow the Gators to outslug them. That’s how he’ll be remembered.
Brandon Neely’s early-season struggles were overwritten by his late-season dominance; beginning with the de facto play-in series at Georgia, Neely gave the Gators 28.2 innings and gave up just six hits and six runs, half of which came on one mistake pitch against Clemson– which he quickly made up for by throwing two more scoreless frames in extra innings. That’s how he’ll be remembered.
That’s how this team will be remembered, period. Its run to and through the postseason– all on the road, beginning in Athens and making stops in Stillwater and Clemson– changed how this team will be remembered in the span of less than a month. That’s the beauty of college baseball. Just get yourself to the postseason and give yourself a chance, and then it’s anybody’s trophy to claim. Playing on your home turf in the Regional and Super Regional rounds can help you get there, but it’s no longer seen as a requirement for Florida.
Now there’s a precedent for doing things the hard way. This 2024 Gators baseball team will get the same number etched atop its dugout as the prior thirteen to book passage to Omaha, but it will forever be seen as a monument to the fact that in baseball– or even in any other sport– it’s never truly over until it’s over. You’re never dead, and there’s always a path to redemption, until that final out is recorded.
And so, now that that final out was recorded in the back half of a double play on Wednesday night against Texas A&M, I say to the 2024 Gator baseball team one simple thing.
Thank you for providing that lesson, not only for future athletes who may one day fill your shoes, but to any other person out there who could use a nonfictional tale about how a group of 18-22 year olds overcame so much adversity to take their program– and its fans– on such a wildly unpredictable, record-breaking, and unforgettable ride.
