Legend of 'Jactani' grows as Florida moves closer to returning to College World Series

Updated Jun. 7, 2023 9:54 a.m. ET

Associated Press

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Jac Caglianone quickly has become a folk hero in Gainesville. The pitcher/first baseman isn’t quite on the same level as Tim Tebow or Joakim Noah in Florida athletics lore, but he’s not far behind.

He is the program’s best two-way player since Brad Wilkerson (1996-98), one of the county’s most intriguing pro prospects for 2024 and could be the face of amateur baseball by the time the College World Series begins next week.

Jeffrey Alan Caglianone, better known as Jac or Cags and playfully nicknamed “Jactani” as an ode to two-way MLB sensation Shohei Ohtani, has captivated teammates, coaches and fans while putting the second-ranked Gators in position to return to Omaha, Nebraska, for the first time since 2018. Florida (48-15) hosts Southeastern Conference rival South Carolina (42-19) in a best-of-three super regional beginning Friday.

And all eyes surely will be on Caglianone and his growing mythology.

“I had no idea he was going to become a Greek god,” coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “It’s been something to see, but I don’t think he could have handled it any better.”

Caglianone is hitting .337 as a sophomore and leads the country with 31 home runs, smashing the school record set by Matt LaPorta (26) in 2005 and tied by teammate Wyatt Langford last year. The 6-foot-5, 245-pound left-hander also is 7-3 in 16 starts with a 3.78 ERA, serving primarily as the team’s No. 3 starter behind Brandon Sproat and Hurston Waldrep.

The Tampa native was at his best last week as the Gators advanced in the NCAA Tournament. He was voted the MVP of the Gainesville Regional after throwing six shutout innings in the opener against Florida A&M and then hitting three homers — including two no-doubters against UConn — and driving in eight runs over the next three games.

“He hit those a long way,” Huskies coach Jim Penders quipped.

Caglianone probably would have had three more long balls had it not been for a stiff wind blowing in all weekend. Nonetheless, he still turned every at-bat into a can’t-miss moment for the 7,500 fans filling Condron Family Ballpark.

“He’s a physical specimen," Florida shortstop Josh Rivera said. "Anytime he makes contact with a ball, you always just have your eyes wide open. You want to track the ball because you don’t know where it’s going to land.”

The same could be said about Caglianone, whose meteoric rise caught everyone by surprise.

O’Sullivan recruited Caglianone primarily as a pitcher and planned to have him sit out as a freshman in 2022 following Tommy John surgery. But Caglianone’s rehab allowed him to handle a bat long before he could toss a ball — he spent countless hours lifting weights, working in the cage and tweaking his swing — and the results were eye-popping.

“He started hitting balls farther than anybody else we had, and we’ve got some really good hitters,” O’Sullivan said. “He’s just a different athlete altogether.”

A few months later, with the Gators scuffling at 23-16 overall and 6-11 in SEC play, O’Sullivan asked Caglianone to give up his redshirt and try to breathe life into a stagnant offense. One selling point: O’Sullivan already could tell Caglianone would be MLB-bound after the minimum three years in college.

So Caglianone talked it over with his family — his dad was a college pitcher at nearby Stetson — and agreed to play. He homered in his first career start, a loss at Tennessee in late April, and became the team’s everyday designated hitter over the final 27 games.

Florida went 19-8 with Caglianone in the lineup. He finished with seven homers, none more memorable than the 480-foot shot at Missouri that cleared the center-field fence and landed on the football team’s indoor practice field. Not bad for a guy who never even had double-digit homers in high school.

“I was like, ‘Oh my goodness,’” Rivera said. “I got in trouble for not running because I wanted to watch the ball. But that’s kind of when I noticed he was going to be different.”

Even though Caglianone added 10 pounds of muscle in the offseason, the Gators figured he’d produce around 15 homers in his first full season. He had 13 by the time SEC play began in March and became the school’s home run king in early May.

“Honestly, kind of being away from the game for so long kind of allowed me to reinvent my swing and reinvent my approach toward the game,” said Caglianone, who is one RBI shy of tying Preston Tucker's school record (85) set in 2009. “It gave me an even greater appreciation for it, having it taken away for quite some time.

“So really just kind of taking every day as if it’s like my last time ever lacing up my cleats.”

The Gators get Caglianone for one more season and already have rewarded his contributions; he’s the first of five student-athletes featured in a launch video for the school’s rebranded name, image and likeness fundraising collective.

He’s unlikely to land the kind of deals that Tebow and Noah would have gotten had NIL been around in their days, but he won’t be far behind. And like both of those Florida icons, he has a chance to win a national championship before moving on.

“It’s definitely been a year full of surprises,” Caglianone said. “I haven’t changed as a person. The on-field success, I try not to let it creep into my regular life. I’m still just a 20-year-old college kid living like everybody else.”

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