FSU baseball: Impact of Link Jarrett hiring Notre Dame assistants

FSU baseball got its guy when they hired Link Jarrett last month. Jarrett gave some thoughts on what he wanted to do with the program at his introductory press conference, and one thing he wasn’t sure about at the time was his staff.

According to 247’s Brett Nevitt and D1Baseball’s Kendall Rogers Twitter, Jarrett will hire two former assistants from Notre Dame.

Rich Wallace will follow Link Jarrett to Tallahassee as the hitting coach/recruiting coordinator and Chuck Ristano will be the pitching coach.

If it’s not broken don’t fix it right? These three coaches took Notre Dame to a Super Regional in 2021 and the College World Series in 2022.

When we look at Notre Dame from an offensive standpoint. They hit for average (.291) and power (79 home runs), and only struck out 21.5 percent of their at-bats. They were aggressive on the bases with 79 steals out of 99 attempts.

Most importantly, they scored 428 runs, which was 95 more runs than FSU baseball in 2022. All of these stats are far superior to what FSU produced this year. From a pitching standpoint, the Notre Dame staff was better statistically, although they arguably had less talent. Notre Dame’s ERA was No. 10 nationally, and opposing batters only hit .231 against them. Notre Dame pitchers allowed fewer home runs and fewer hits.

Rich Wallace has Florida recruiting times with his time at UCF and Jacksonville which should help along with the pedigree of Link Jarrett with the FSU baseball brand. The synergy among these guys should make the transition easier as Wallace and Ristano are familiar with how Jarrett likes to do things.

That will help improve the culture of the program quicker too. It could also help attract some much-needed talent from the transfer portal. One name off of the top of my head is Freshman All-American left-handed pitcher Jack Findlay. Findlay pitched at Notre Dame last year and entered the transfer portal on July 6th. Welcome to Tallahassee fellas!