Gators baseball coach suspended for regional rant

Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan suspended over regional rantplay

Coastal Carolina baseball coach sounds off on Florida coach’s rant (1:30)

Coastal Carolina baseball coach Kevin Schnall calls out Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan for his rant to site administrators before an elimination game at the NCAA Conway Regional (1:30)

ESPN News Services

Aug 29, 2025, 02:51 PM ET

Florida has suspended baseball coach Kevin O’Sullivan for the first three games of the 2026 regular season following his profanity-laced language directed at site administrators during an NCAA regional in 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 Friday. “Sully has vowed to learn from the experience and serve as a better leader moving forward.”

The NCAA Division I Baseball Committee also issued a public reprimand to O’Sullivan for his aggressive behavior.

The committee said O’Sullivan’s actions June 1 violated an NCAA bylaw that says misconduct in a championship event is “any act of dishonesty, unsportsmanlike conduct, unprofessional behavior or breach of law, occurring from the time the championship field is announced through the end of the championship, that discredits the event or intercollegiate athletics.”

O’Sullivan was upset because the start time of his team’s elimination game against East Carolina — an 11-4 loss — was pushed back an hour. East Carolina’s previous game had ended at midnight.

The Florida coach publicly apologized the day after his outburst, but videos of the tirade were circulated widely on social media. Kevin Schnall, coach of host Coastal Carolina, ripped O’Sullivan for the outburst during a news conference later that day.

“This is a national champion coach who thinks he can come in here and try to bully people around,” Schnall said at the time. “Disappointed. Disappointed somebody that a lot of coaches look up to, for him to act that way.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.