Florida State Seminoles baseball officially has its Super Regionals opponent.
The Seminoles will be facing off against the UConn Huskies, who advanced from the Norman Regional with a dominant 7-1 win over the Oklahoma Sooners on Monday night.
FSU (46-15, 17-12 ACC) is hosting the second level of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017, earning the right after clinching the No. 8 national seed and then going 3-0 in the Tallahassee Regional.
Per FSU Sports Info, Florida State’s 18 Super Regional appearances are the most in the country since the stage was added to postseason play in 1999.
“This is great, I expected to do this,” head coach Link Jarrett said after FSU’s win over the UCF Knights on Sunday. “This is what I wanted to do and it’s not easy. We talk about this all fall, all spring, and into the season to perform consistently with athletic, talented players. Giving us an opportunity to sit where we’re sitting right now. I’m proud, it’s about them. They went and did this and we helped get them here. They went in and performed and executed.”
The Huskies (35-24, 17-4 Big East) took down the hosting Sooners in a winner-take-all Game 7 to clinch their Super Regionals spot. UConn, who had a chance to eliminate the Sooners on Sunday but fell two runs short, was the No. 3 seed in the regional with Oklahoma having been seeded No. 9 overall in the tourney.
On the mound, left-hander Garret Coe has led the Huskies with a 9-5 record and 4.70 season ERA. Per UConn Sports Info, he’s tied at 11th all-time in school history with 17 career wins. As far as the bats go, senior Korey Morton has 76 hits on the season (10 home runs) with a .320 batting average, with Paul Tammaro second on the team with a .301 BA and 11 homers on the year.*
*numbers prior to Monday’s matchup vs. Oklahoma
Florida State and UConn have faced off just once in program history, a 5-3 Huskies win in June 1957.
The finalized slate for Super Regional Play hasn’t been released, but the eight best-of-three matchups are set to take place either during Friday-Sunday, June 7-9 or Saturday-Monday, June 8-10.
Florida State baseball (45-15) will host UConn (35-24) in the first Tallahassee Super Regional since 2017. FSU went 3-0 to win the Tallahassee Regional. The Huskies convincingly beat No. 9 Oklahoma, 7-1, in game seven of the Norman Regional to advance to Supers for the third time in program history.
The Huskies were the Big East regular season champions, going 17-4 in the conference. They’re No. 40 in RPI. They’re 19-18 away from home this season.
Entering Monday, UConn was batting .274 as a team with a .374 OBP and .466 SLG%, producing 111 doubles and 83 homers. On the mound, the Huskies possessed a 4.83 ERA and .258 batting average against.
FSU and UConn have only played once before, in the 1957 College World Series. Florida State was the No. 1 seed in the Norwich Regional hosted by the Huskies in 2010 but never played them that weekend.
This is the 18th time FSU has advanced to Super Regionals, the most all-time appearances. It is the first trip to Supers since 2019. The Seminoles’ 22-win improvement is the largest year-over-year in program history; the previous (non-Covid) best was a 13-win bump from 2001 (47) to 2002 (60).
The latest college football preseason rankings are out ahead of 2024, this time via ESPN’s Football Power Index top 25. Compared to the 247Sports post-spring rankings, this one looks vastly different toward the back end of the poll, which reflects transfer portal additions, various roster changes and conference-title perception among contenders.
ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) is a “measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is. Projected results are based on 20,000 simulations of the rest of the season using FPI, results to date, and the remaining schedule. Ratings and projections update daily.”
The newly-expanded SEC and Big Ten have dominated most preseason rankings, along with a couple ACC powerhouses and Notre Dame. The 2024 season offers a ton of intrigue with the debut of the 12-team expanded College Football Playoff and several new rules being implemented.