![Florida pitcher Cooper Walls (38) pitches during the 2026 NCAA Baseball Championship Gainesville Regional championship baseball game at Condron Family Ballpark in Gainesville, FL on Monday, June 1, 2026. Troy beat Florida Sunday they played a winner take all game Monday. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_2305,h_1296/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01kv0jgbkkje1hpwd8hf.jpg "Florida pitcher Cooper Walls (38) pitches during the 2026 NCAA Baseball Championship Gainesville Regional championship baseball game at Condron Family Ballpark in Gainesville, FL on Monday, June 1, 2026. Troy beat Florida Sunday they played a winner take all game Monday. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
Now that Florida’s season has ended and the dust is settling, the Gators have had nine players from their 2026 squad hit the transfer portal. The most notable player was Cade Kurland, who claimed he was going to pursue “pro ball” only to take a detour and sign with LSU.
Florida just had another notable member transfer to another notable rival, and in many ways, Cooper Walls leaving after one year for Georgia tells the story of the 2026 Gators as a whole.
Cooper Walls transfers to Georgia
Pitcher Cooper Walls has transferred to Georgia after one season with Florida. Walls transferred into Florida from Hawaii, where he was the 2025 Big West Freshman Pitcher of the Year with a 3.73 ERA.
Walls told Dawgnation, “(Georgia is) obvious World Series contenders, and that’s my ultimate goal, to go win a Natty somewhere. So that’s kind of what brought me to go there,” and it is here we need to pause and review the year Walls had.
We here at Hail Florida Hail try to make it a point not to go after individual players and usually spare any vitriol for the coaches themselves, but a notable reason why the Gators are not in Omaha themselves is because of Walls.
Walls began the year as a weekend starter for Florida, but lost that spot to Russell Sandefer after giving up four runs in 4.0 innings to Kennessaw State. Walls would then bounce back and forth between being a midweek starter and a weekend arm out of the bullpen.
He had back-to-back appearances in April against Georgia and Bethune-Cookman, where he gave up a combined six earned runs without recording a single out. He gave up three earned runs in 1.1 innings against LSU and he wasn’t used at all in the SEC Tournament.
Walls wasn’t used during the NCAA Tournament until Kevin O’Sullivan opted for the “break glass in case of emergency" route and started Walls in the win-or-go-home game against Troy. Walls lasted 29 pitches, giving up two earned runs off two hits and two walks before Florida went to Caden McDonald.
There is plenty of blame to go around, and O’Sullivan has made some big changes to his coaching staff, including hiring a new pitching coach, but Walls talks about wanting to play in the College World Series when he himself couldn’t do his part against Troy, which would have almost guaranteed Florida would wind up in Omaha, given Troy went on to beat Little Rock.
It will be interesting for sure when Florida and Georgia match up next season to see if Walls can return to the form he had in 2025 and be a contributor. He will still have two years of eligibility left.
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