By ANDRE CHAMPAGNE, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter
It’s been a long season for coach Jay Johnson and his LSU baseball team. And it could lead to an even longer offseason if the Tigers fail to reach the postseason for the first time since 2011.
As it stands, LSU is 24-18 overall and 6-12 in SEC play. After dropping the series opener to No. 7 Texas A&M, 7-2, last Friday, Johnson didn’t hold back. Enough was enough, and he made his frustration clear, voicing his disapproval with both the team’s performance and how the roster was built.
“I made some mistakes in constructing the team and trying to replace two guys that were irreplaceable, where we should have looked at replacing them through guys that were already in the program,” Johnson said. He added he needed to go after players who were more athletic and could play defense and be more complete players.
“We won’t make that mistake again,” he said. “The power moving forward will be from players that start their career here and develop into it like Jake (Brown) has.”
Sadly, Brown broke the hamate bone in his wrist two days later against the Aggies and has been lost for the season.
"It's a deep-rooted thing, we're off and this will never happen again"
— John Eads WAFB-TV (@JohnEadsWAFB) April 18, 2026
Blunt honesty from Jay Johnson about some of the things plaguing the #LSU offense this year.
Says he made mistakes in roster construction with his team this year. pic.twitter.com/SgTDhiptdH
While there was truth in Johnson’s comments, the message may not have landed the way he intended. Instead of lighting a fire in his team, LSU dropped the next two games of the series, allowing the Aggies to leave Alex Box Stadium with a sweep – an outcome that felt similar to Texas A&M’s football team dominating Brian Kelly’s squad in November.
Even if Johnson’s assessment was accurate, Baton Rouge’s ESPN 104.5 FM Radio talk show host Hunt Palmer, who also is an analyst on the LSU Radio Network’s play-by-play coverage of the Tigers, believes Johnson should have saved those comments for the end of the season.
“I just felt like what Jay said on Friday felt like a June 15th press conference, not a, ‘We still have 14 SEC games left to go,'” Palmer said on Tiger Rag Radio Tuesday night. “Because what he essentially said was, ‘We’ve got players on this team that aren’t good enough.’ And I just don’t know how that helps morale in the locker room.”
Over the last five seasons, Johnson has worked to build one of the strongest clubhouse cultures in the country with national titles in 2023 and ’25. During that stretch, LSU has consistently had the leadership and unselfishness needed to match its talent. But Palmer said he believes those standards could be at risk following Johnson’s remarks.
“The culture has been phenomenal, and I think it’s just hard to carry that through the next month with this team when the coach has gone out and said, ‘Yeah, this is the roster we have, and I kind of screwed up putting it together,’” Palmer said. “I just don’t think that’s great for morale.”
Despite the current struggles, a turnaround isn’t out of the question. Other teams have made similar late-season pushes. Ole Miss won the national championship in 2022 after finishing 14-16 in SEC play and being the last team invited to the NCAA postseason. Programs like Murray State, Kent State and Stony Brook have also made unexpected postseason runs. So did LSU in 2021, reaching a Super Regional after a 13-17 league finish.
But LSU has a gauntlet ahead as the challenge only grows.
“You’re asking LSU to go do this for four weeks against Mississippi State on the road and Georgia on the road and a ridiculously talented Florida team,” Palmer said. “It’s a tall task.”
Time may have already run out on the Tigers as they have remained inconsistent, as D1Baseball’s Mark Etheridge said on Tiger Rag Radio Tuesday.
“I think one is they’re so one-dimensional offensively,” Etheridge said. “You got a lot of guys that are really power focused or big-swing focused, and they are not versatile enough to beat you in different ways. They can’t beat you with defense. They can’t beat you with a small game or hitting behind the runners. And I think the other part is just a lack of out collecting for lack of a better term.”
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