By GLENN GUILBEAU
Tiger Rag Editor
When you consider that LSU just won two national championships in the last three seasons, and the other two seasons of coach Jay Johnson’s first four at LSU were within striking distance of Omaha, you start to realize just how strange the 2026 season was that ended Wednesday at the Southeastern Conference Tournament with a 3-1 loss to Auburn.
After going 40-22 and 17-13 in the Southeastern Conference in Johnson’s first season in 2022, LSU lost an NCAA Regional, 8-7, at Southern Mississippi to end its season. Had the Tigers won that one, they would have hosted Ole Miss in the Super Regional in Alex Box Stadium, where LSU rarely loses with Omaha on the line.
In 2023, LSU won the national title at 54-17 and 19-10 in the SEC. In 2024, The Tigers dipped to 43-23 and 13-17, but they finished a win away from hosting a Super Regional in Alex Box. Because host North Carolina came back to win 4-3 in 10 innings to win that NCAA Regional.
In 2025, LSU won the national championship at 53-15 and 19-11, entered 2026 as a preseason No. 1 and started off 8-0 and 11-1.
Somehow, the Tigers finished their 2026 regular season at 29-26 overall and 9-21 in the SEC with the 21 league losses the most in school history. The 1978 team went 12-34 and 6-18. LSU last failed to win 30 in a season in coach Paul Mainieri’s first season in 2007 when he finished 29-26-1 and 12-17-1 two years before winning the national championship.
LSU was swept in three consecutive three-game SEC series for the first time in school history this season. LSU was swept five times in the SEC in all for another school record. The Tigers set the school record for wild pitches with 90 – 21 more than the previous record of 69 set in 1999 and tied in 2018.
LSU pitchers finished the regular season with the most walks in the SEC at 289 – just four from breaking the school record of 292 set in 1988 in the only season in which coach Skip Bertman did not reach the NCAA postseason. And LSU finished with the worst ERA in the league at 5.72, which was not far from the school record worst of 6.08 in 1981.
The Tigers did not reach the NCAA postseason this year for the first time since 2011.
“I’ve never been through anything like this,” Johnson said as the regular season final weekend approached. He went to Omaha twice while coaching Arizona and reached or contended for the NCAA Regional round the other years.
“That was like no other Senior Day I’ve ever had,” he said after a 15-11 loss to Florida in the regular season finale for the Tigers’ sixth straight loss last Saturday. “Because we always had postseason implications factoring into every decision that you make, and today they were not.”
No, this was the season from outer space at LSU.
“This is like Pluto,” Johnson said, putting the 2026 season into perfect perspective.
And Pluto hasn’t made the NCAA Regional of planets, so to speak, since 2005 because it lost its planet status in 2006. It is now referred to as a dwarf planet, perhaps because of a weak RPI. Well, LSU’s 2026 season certainly dwarfs in comparison to the program’s illustrious solar system of eight national championships since 1991 and 22 trips to Omaha since 1986.
This season has really been a shock to Johnson’s system ever since a 7-2 loss at Lafayette on March 4 amid eight pitchers and three errors. He started questioning his scheduling after that one.
After a 10-4 loss to Texas A&M at home on April 17 following a sweep the previous weekend at the hands of Ole Miss, Johnson started reevaluating everything.
“Yeah, I think it’s a deep-rooted thing,” he said. “We’re off, and it will never happen again.”
Then he turned to his roster construction with 14 SEC games still to play. But he knew what he saw, and LSU won only three more league games – all against South Carolina, which finished 15th in the SEC at 7-23. He pointed directly at several disappointing players from the portal.
“I made some mistakes in constructing the team in trying to replace guys who were irreplaceable,” Johnson said. “We should’ve looked to replacing them through guys already in the program with players who were athletic and could play defense and be more complete players. OK, we won’t make that mistake again. The power moving forward will come from players who start their careers here and develop it.”
LSU began to hit better as the season ended because of freshmen playing more like Omar Serna Jr. (.306, 9 HRs, 37 RBIs) and Mason Braun (.305, 3 HRs, 19 RBIs). But the pitching just kept getting worse.
“Maybe, the fact that we scored in two of the three games is a positive,” Johnson said after getting swept by Florida, 11-8, 11-1 and 15-11. “We just got to get better on the mound. I’ve always used, ‘If we get to seven on offense.’ That’s usually produced wins like 80-plus percent of the time. We’ve screwed that stat up completely this year.”
LSU’s offense has scored seven or more runs a whopping 11 times this season and still lost by scores of 13-10, 13-12, 10-7, 8-7, 10-8, 9-8, 13-8, 11-8, 13-8, 11-8 and 15-11 with nine of those in SEC games.
That’s poor pitching.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Johnson said.
Johnson started talking about recruiting for next season with more than a month left in the season.
“It’s a turnover year for us,” he said in late April. “We’re going to have six or seven drafted off this team. Maybe eight.”
Johnson dispatched assistant coach Josh Simpson on an early recruiting trip in late April.
“We needed to cover some ground,” Johnson said.
High ground like on the mound as none of Johnson’s freshman pitchers did very well all season.
Help is on the way among LSU’s 24 commitments for the class of 2026, such as highly ranked left-hander Logan Schmidt, and right-handers Jensen Hirschkorn and Kolby Stringer. Among the elite players already signed look for right-handers Cooper Sides and Dylan Blomker to possibly contribute significantly along with left-hander Lucas Nawrocki.
Among the committed position players expected to make a mark is outfielder Malachi Washington. Among the top signees are outfielder Anthony Murphy and first baseman Dominic Santarelli.
Johnson discussed his pitching after being eliminated from hosting a Super Regional at Alex Box in 2022 after losing the NCAA Regional at Southern Mississippi much like he did above after the loss to Florida on the last day of this season.
“It’s a simple game really,” Johnson said in Hattiesburg on June 6, 2022, after that 8-7 loss to USM as six relievers allowed four runs on seven hits in six innings. “They’re infinitely better on the mound than us. We have work to do. We’ve got to pitch better. End of story.”
He had as big a job ahead of him then after his first LSU season as he does now. He’s basically starting over.
“This is deep pain,” he said four years ago.
“Painful, really painful,” he said Wednesday night.
“I didn’t want to let myself think that we’re not playing this weekend,” Johnson said of Super Regional weekend in 2022. “I want to win the national championship. That’s why I came to LSU – to make a bunch of runs at winning the national title. We’ll get there.”
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