Florida Gators Baseball HC Kevin O'Sullivan Speaks on SEC's ABS Experiment

HOOVER, Ala.-- The Florida Gators baseball team enters the postseason as the No. 5 seed in the SEC Tournament, hoping to officially clinch a regional hosting bid and potentially a super regional hosting bid for the NCAA Tournament.

As Florida begins its postseason, the Gators will also have to deal with an in-season rules change as the SEC experiments with an Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge system for the SEC Tournament.

"It'll be interesting for sure," head coach Kevin O'Sullivan told Florida Gators on SI after Florida's win over North Florida on May 5. "But the game is always evolving and changing, and we've got to evolve and change with the changes."

To clarify, the ABS challenge system mirrors Major League Baseball's system, in which either a pitcher, by tapping his cap, a batter, by tapping his helmet, or a catcher, by tapping his mask, can initiate a challenge within three seconds of the pitch. Once a challenge is initiated, the umpire signals to the press box and announces that the challenge has been initiated. From there, the pitch location is tracked against the batter's individual strike zone, and the videoboard and broadcast show the results.

Here's the first successful ABS challenge in the history of college baseball. @MizzouBaseball catcher Mateo Serna with the successful helmet tap. pic.twitter.com/99mam4hwFP
— Jacob Rudner (@JacobRudner) May 19, 2026

The SEC defines its strike zone for the ABS challenge system as follows: 19-inch width plust a one-inch border on each side, 8.5 inches in front of the back tip of the plate with the upper boundary set at 58 percent of the batter's certified standing height and the lower boundary at 23 percent of the batter's certified standing height.

Also of note, a catcher "framing" a pitch has no effect on a challenged pitch.

Each team will have three challenges per game and retains each challenge with a successful call. In the 10th inning, a team without challenges receives one additional challenge for just the 10th inning, while a team with challenges remaining will not receive an additional challenge until all have been exhausted.

Additionally, teams are prohibited from using electronic devices to aid in making challenges, and team personnel are barred from protesting ABS calls.

With plenty of rules, O'Sullivan said he is largely relying on hitting coach Tom Slater, who has experience coaching in the major leagues during spring training and in the minor leagues, to coach the hitters on when to make ABS challenges.

"He's been around a really a lot of really, really good hitters. Ever since he stepped into this place, he's been phenomenal," infielder Landon Stripling said. "He's open to everybody, whenever you want to hit, talk, whatever, Slate's here. He pours everything he has into this, and he wants to be here for us. And so having his experience has been great, but just having the person who Slate is has been even better, and so super appreciative of everything that he does."

O'Sullivan added that Florida will try to implement "guidelines" to make appropriately timed challenges.

"You can't be tapping your helmet the first inning and third pitch of the game, you know what I mean? There's got to be some guidelines that way," he said.

Defensively, O'Sullivan said Florida will largely rely on catcher Karson Bowen over its pitching staff to make challenges.

"I don't really care. Honestly, I just pitch. I mean, I'm not doing that. I'm not using it," reliever Cooper Walls said. "If the catcher wants to use it, great. If the catcher steals a couple of strikes from it, great. I'm not using it."

The SEC is currently tracking all of its ABS challenges for the SEC Tournament here with the goal of possibly implementing it in future seasons. O'Sullivan explained it would be beneficial to have ABS in college baseball so the rules can be as closely-mirrored to the MLB level as possible.

Meanwhile, Florida begins its postseason play on Wednesday against the winner of No. 12 Vanderbilt and No. 13 Kentucky. Television coverage can be found at approximately 2 p.m. ET on SEC Network.

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