The road is set - Can FSU navigate it?

Ninth-seeded Noles may have to hit the road - if they win here

Wasn’t that Florida State Seminole baseball team ranked No. 2 in the land just the other day? Now, they’re 9th, behind Oregon State? What in the world happened to cause such a precipitous drop? Welcome to the world of College Baseball in 2025. Nobody knows anything.

Does Vanderbilt deserve the No. 1 ranking? Does LSU? Does Arkansas? Does Texas? Does North Carolina? They’ve all lost around the same number of games and won roughly the same, FSU a little bit shy because a series was cancelled. Won-Lost doesn’t tell you that much in this case.

What we can say is North Carolina, at least against FSU, seems to have an edge, partly because they were better in every aspect of the game — pitching, hitting with runners on base, running the bases and especially defense. There had to be a half-dozen spectacular Tar Heel defensive plays in the four games between the two. I don’t really remember any FSU standout plays off the top of my head. (Doesn’t mean there weren’t any — they just didn’t jump out.)

And the fact that FSU got just one player on the All-Tournament team and a whopping surprise at that — freshman Myles Bailey, who might have been tournament MVP had FSU gotten to the title game — also tells you about the rest of the ballclub in those two tournament games. Not what they needed, that’s for sure.

While you do wonder how a team can look so formidable at one time, so vulnerable the next, some of that is just the way baseball is. As I learned once again in writing my new baseball book “Diamond Duels,” there are some pitchers who may not leave their footprint on the sands of time but they can find ways to get a superior hitter out. Other teams seem to have these guys at the most inopportune time. Frank DiPino (who?) held Tony Gwynn to an .050 batting average. Joe DiMaggio couldn’t hit little lefty Billy Pierce (.133). Some things you can’t explain. Somebody in this Regional will shock us. You can bet on it.

How far can these Seminoles go? The road to Omaha is set

UNC’s Jake Knapp, at least against FSU, looks as dominant as any pitcher I’ve seen and that should get UNC halfway to the Super Regional. FSU’s Jamie Arnold has had a terrific year and dominating moments but he can’t get you to the 7th, it seems. Wes Mendes has probably pitched better than Joey Volini the last two times out which either means the kid has learned or that the husky Volini is a bit worn down, understandable after a team-leading 77 innings.

(Yes, I know Arnold threw 105 last year, Carson Dorsey 76, but Dorsey, after the Duke Debacle, was FSU’s best postseason pitcher. Remember that.)

Eyeing these opponents, Mississippi State can hit. They have a cast of thousands pitching staff but three guys whose stats say they can swing it, double-figures in HRs including Ace Reese (.371) with 21 homers. Bethune-Cookman can run, two guys (Sergio Rivera, Darryl Lee) with 57 steals between them which is not good news for an FSU catching crew that would have trouble throwing out Ty Cobb (dead since 1961). Northeastern is anotherteamfromthenorth with a gaudy record (48-9), the immortal Harrison Feinberg with a .379 average and 18 bombs (is that a baseball name or what?) led by hurler Will Jones, a tidy 11-0 with 1.82 ERA. These numbers surely have Link and Micah worried. And they should be worried. If they win here and Oregon State wins there, FSU will have to road trip their way to Omaha.

It’s a cliche that the Regionals and Super Regionals are “a second season” but in the case of these on-again, off-again Seminoles, that truly is the case. It may be blasphemous to say this but I could see them losing to Bethune-Cookman in that opener. Remember the Mercer game? The two horror shows vs. North Carolina?

I could also see them, with strong pitching efforts that get their starters deep into the game, sailing though, taming Mississippi State’s bats, hoping of course that USC or TCU or somebody knocks off Oregon State, who jumped up to that 8th and final spot that everybody in the world figured at least would have been FSU’s.

Again, weren’t they just No. 2? Somebody or somebodies at the NCAA Selection Committee evidently didn’t like that they saw or have been seeing from these Seminoles. Were they right? Do we really know?

Their perpetual problems — lousy catching, a nagging inability to deliver with men on base, a bullpen from Hell — always seem to pop up when it seems the team is about to take off. The ACC Tournament semifinal with North Carolina, riddled with gaffes and sloppy play, was still a really exciting ballgame and a couple Seminole mistakes at the finish did them in. They certainly could have won, just didn’t. Which maybe is why the dip to No. 9.

What we don’t know — nobody does — is who will show up on Friday afternoon and the rest of this baseball season, however long it’s supposed to go. It’s a whole different deal now. As good as Cam Smith and James Tibbs were in the Super Regionals, they were absolutely no help in Omaha (2 hits between them, one in his first at bat) and FSU still was in the driver’s seat for most of that Tennessee showdown, despite the foolhardiness of pitching to Christian Moore five times in a row (resulting in five hits! Take a hint, fellas.)

That team had some flaws, too but once in Omaha, FSU looked as good as anybody, except for that accursed pen. How good is FSU compared with the rest of America? Who knows? Clearly, nobody who does the rankings has any flaming idea either.

Part of baseball’s charm is its unpredictability. Whatever strategy sessions Link Jarrett and Micah Posey have between now and Friday, the truth is they have no idea what to expect from their team. Which, for Link, a guy who wants control of every single pitch, every single out, has to be exasperating. As it is, of course, for Seminole Nation, who rightly wonder why this team is so up and down?

Maybe the right approach — and admittedly, it’s just about impossible to pull this off — is to treat these games like Christmas presents. You know, when you don’t know what you’re going to get and are just excited to see the row of presents neatly wrapped, stacked up under the tree. What are we going to get? Something cool? Or is it a tie?

There have been a lot of fun moments this baseball season, none sweeter than Alex Lodise’s walk-off grand slam which sent Eric Luallen almost into Johnny Most-Voice Three. (You won’t get that if you weren’t a Celtics’ fan — “Havlicek stole the ball…that guy.) You never know who will get hot and do something dramatic. I seem to remember Stevie Nadeau going nuts in Omaha. I think I remember Mike Martin Jr., not particularly adept with the stick (.272 career), swinging like a madman in a Regional. Jaxson West’s HR last year?

It could be this team has gone as far as they can, flaws and all. Maybe we’ll look back and say what a helluva job this team did, rising to No. 2 in the national rankings despite some pretty severe flaws.

Maybe they’ll let the Animals inspire them the way they did when the Noles faced Stanford’s Mark Appel, everybody’s No. 1 and made him wet his pants. Regional Theater is almost always the theater of the unexpected.

More than any other FSU team I’ve seen since I’ve been in town — 32 years — when it comes to this Regional, your guess is as good as mine. And Link’s.