UCF baseball set to hire Florida State assistant coach Rich Wallace

Rich Wallace, an assistant coach with the Florida State Seminoles who was previously on staff at Notre Dame, will be the next head coach at UCF. That’s according to multiple reports.

Wallace played at UCF during his playing career and is a native of Orlando. He has nearly two decades of experience as a college baseball coach, most recently serving as an assistant to Link Jarrett. With Jarrett at Florida State, he acted as a recruiting coordinator. Prior to that, he was the recruiting coordinator and third base coach for Jarrett at Notre Dame.

Link Jarrett has praised Rich Wallace in the past, saying, “Rich helped guide our transition at Notre Dame through diligent personalized recruiting, a vast national recruiting network, and tireless hard work. His on-field instructional versatility lends itself well to working with multiple positions while focusing his attention on the catchers. His work in helping the hitters, baserunners and defensive alignment was paramount in our team’s success and will be vital at FSU.”

Rich Wallace is replacing Greg Lovelady at UCF. Lovelady spent seven seasons as the head coach at UCF, going 225-149 during his time there. He also led UCF to an NCAA Regional in 2017. However, the Knights never got back to that point under Lovelady and with the Big 12 looming, AD Terry Mohajir decided to make a change of leadership.

Wallace played at UCF from 2000-03, under head coach Jay Bergman. There, he was a power hitting corner infielder, earning Freshman All-American honors from Collegiate Baseball. During his playing career, UCF made three straight NCAA Regionals as a member of the Atlantic Sun Conference.

He later began his coaching career at UCF as a graduate assistant and then as a volunteer assistant between 2004 and 2008. From there, he became known as an elite recruiter who knows the state of Florida incredibly well.

Florida State currently has one of the best recruiting classes in college baseball and several UCF players have transferred to Florida State following Lovelady’s exit. It remains to be seen if those players decide to return to UCF or stay at FSU.

There was a lot of interest in the coaching search at UCF, with the Knights offering the job to World Series winning manager Joe Girardi before he decided against going to college.

Now, the job is Rich Wallace’s to try and turn UCF into a top-tier baseball program in the Big 12.