Jay Johnson Calls Jake Brown “A Guy You Wish You Could Coach Forever”

By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor

The LSU lineup looked strange on Tuesday night at Alex Box Stadium.

Junior Jake Brown was not batting high in the order and playing right field as he had been in all previous 41 LSU games this season.

Freshman William Patrick took Brown’s place, and like Brown before him, fittingly doubled in a run for a 1-0 lead in the third inning against the University of New Orleans. The Tigers went on to win 10-7 without Brown.

LSU Baseball Loses Its Best Player For The Season – Jake Brown Has Wrist Injury

A junior from Sulphur who was a hero in Omaha, Nebraska, last season on the Tigers’ 2025 national championship team, Brown is done for the season with a broken hamate bone in his wrist suffered on Sunday against Texas A&M that will require surgery. Since he is expected to be taken in one of the early rounds of the Major League Baseball draft this summer, Brown is not expected to return to the Tigers.

“For Jake, that’s a really tough one,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said after the game. “The first thing I thought about when I was told what it was – I hurt for him. Because of how much this means to him. And he means a lot to me and the program. He’s one of the best players I’ve ever coached. He’s one of the best people I’ve ever coached – the competitor that he is, the character that he has, the work ethic, the team-first attitude.”

Brown finishes the season as the team’s leader in home runs with 16 and in RBIs with 49. He is third on the team in batting average at .309 and has nine stolen bases in 10 attempts with seven doubles.

“Like, there’s just no hole,” Johnson said. “That’s a guy you wish you could coach forever. And he’ll make a Major League team really happy in the draft. I can’t say enough good things about him. That was a gut punch.”