![Florida head coach Kevin O'Sullivan gets ready to take on Rider during the 2016 NCAA Baseball Championship Gainesville Regional baseball game at Condron Family Ballpark in Gainesville, FL on Friday, May 29, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_2655,h_1493/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01kvzdn2vk147dyfvrym.jpg "Florida head coach Kevin O'Sullivan gets ready to take on Rider during the 2016 NCAA Baseball Championship Gainesville Regional baseball game at Condron Family Ballpark in Gainesville, FL on Friday, May 29, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
Florida losing to Troy twice and getting bounced from the NCAA Tournament was a massive opportunity lost for the Gators in 2026. Beyond the optics of getting eliminated from their home regional for the third time in the last four times hosting, the pathway to Omaha and beyond for Florida was wide open. As things played out, Florida would have faced Little Rock in the Super Regionals and then West Virginia in the opening game of the CWS.
The Gators would have had No. 5 UNC on their side of the bracket in Omaha, but the championship series would have awaited the Oklahoma Sooners, whom Florida beat two games to one earlier in the season.
But if there is a silver lining in Florida's elimination, it’s that Kevin O’Sullivan has been forced to overhaul his coaching staff, and he is set to hire another home run assistant.
Florida set to hire Todd Butler from Oklahoma
AYS Sports was the first to report that Oklahoma assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Todd Butler is heading to Gainesville to join O’Sullivan’s staff in the position. Butler had been with Oklahoma the past three seasons, and the Sooners' offense exploded during the NCAA Tournament as part of their run to the national title. Oklahoma averaged over nine runs a game once the tournament started and finished in style with a decisive 13-2 beatdown of UNC in game three of the national championship series.
Butler joins O’Sullivan’s staff, which also added pitching coach Rich Dorman from Oregon State. That move was made after Florida’s pitching melted down in Regionals, leading to David Kopp getting the boot.
No excuses for 2027
As we pointed out after Florida’s departure from the tournament, the problem with the 2026 campaign is that it was another failure in a quietly growing list of failures since the 2019 season. 2027 will mark ten years since O’Sullivan won the national title, which is still used by some as a shield to spare Gator Baseball from critiques and criticisms.
And while Florida may or may not have the NIL budget to keep up with the SEC big dogs, its meltdown against Troy had nothing to do with NIL.
Florida now has a top-tier pitching coach. It has a top-tier hitting coach. It will have a roster still good enough to make a run to Omaha and beyond.
We’ll see what things look like when Florida takes the field for real in February, but anything short of the CWS is going to feel like a massive disappointment.
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