Florida baseball coach Kevin O’Sullivan will be suspended by the school for the first three games of the Gators’ 2026 season, the school announced on Friday. The self-imposed penalty is in response to O’Sullivan’s conduct toward NCAA and Coastal Carolina officials during an NCAA regional at Conway, South Carolina.
“The suspension announced today reinforces Florida Athletics’ commitment to our standards, with Coach O’Sullivan accepting full responsibility for his behavior,” athletic director Scott Stricklin said in a statement. “Sully has vowed to learn from the experience and serve as a better leader moving forward.”
During the Conway Regional, played from May 30 to June 1, O’Sullivan confronted tournament officials when Florida’s elimination game versus East Carolina was moved back by an hour, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., because the Pirates’ game against host Coastal Carolina had ended the night before at midnight.
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The East Carolina radio broadcast team caught O’Sullivan’s rant on video. [Warning: The clip includes profane language.]
The No. 2 seeded Gators lost to No. 3 East Carolina, 11-4, for the second time in the regional and were eliminated from the NCAA tournament.
O’Sullivan publicly apologized for his outburst the following day. However, he was heavily criticized for his behavior, including by Stricklin, the Division I Baseball Committee and Coastal Carolina coach Kevin Schnall.
“Another coach disrespected our associate AD, who works as hard as anybody in our entire program,” Schnall told reporters. “He disrespected our field crew, who are the salt of the earth. These guys would do anything for our program. It’s not OK. This needs to be brought up. Absolutely disrespectful.
“As a coach, it’s our job to mentor young kids and the way he treated the two site reps, the way he treated our associate AD, the way he treated our field crew is absolutely unacceptable,” he added. “That’s what I’m most disappointed about. This is a national champion coach who thinks he can come in here and try to bully people around.”
Florida won the NCAA baseball championship in 2017 under O’Sullivan. The coach is going into his 19th season in Gainesville, compiling an overall record of 756–371 (a .671 winning percentage). His program has qualified for the NCAA tournament for 17 consecutive seasons, won six SEC championships and earned nine College World Series appearances.
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The Gators are ranked No. 21 in Baseball America’s “way too early” top 25, 10th among SEC teams.
