Jay Johnson Takes Blame For LSU’s Struggles: “Maybe, It’s On Me” For The Schedule

By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor

The LSU baseball team will play its fifth game in six days on Wednesday night at Louisiana-Lafayette (6 p.m., ESPN+) at a sold-out, 6,033-seat Tigue Moore Field.

And the Cajuns (9-3) will easily be the Tigers’ highest ranked opponent so far this season at No. 14 in the Ratings Percentage Index. They will also be LSU’s highest ranked foe until the No. 2-ranked Tigers (11-2) play at No. 8 RPI Ole Miss (10-2) on April 10-12 in the second month of Southeastern Conference play.

New faces likely to be in LSU lineup Wednesday at Louisiana-Lafayette.
“I’ll make sure I have the right guys in the right spots and right positions for success.”
-Jay Johnsonhttps://t.co/1bTPCoDs1T

— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) March 3, 2026

The Tigers are currently No. 79 in the RPI after a 13-10 loss Monday night to No. 205 RPI Northeastern. And LSU is No. 14 in the SEC out of 16 teams in pitching with a 3.89 ERA, No. 9 in batting average at .310 and No. 7 in home runs with 19.

Over its last five games, LSU is hitting .207 (32-for-154).

LSU Bats Wake Up, But It’s Too Late In 13-10 Loss To Northeastern

“Maybe it’s on me for setting the schedule up the way that I did, if you really want to be honest about it,” Johnson said. “But if we use it correctly, it can and will help us.”

Johnson has bunched a lot of games together to prepare his team for the concentration of games in a short period of time in three-game SEC weekends and in the NCAA postseason.

There were also five games in six days to start the season.

“This is more of a mental test,” he said. “Scheduling this many games in a short amount of time has tested some guys. We’ll need to learn from that experience.”

While LSU is currently No. 161 in the Warren Nolan strength of schedule rankings, Johnson believes that will rise as some of his previous opponents’ RPI rises, such as Northeastern and Kent State, which is already up to No. 41, in addition to No. 255 Sacramento State, which LSU hosts this weekend.

“I scheduled Northeastern because they’re going to go win a lot of games,” he said. “Same thing with Kent State. I expect Sacramento State and (No. 128) Creighton (on March 10) to do that, too, putting our strength of schedule in a good spot and to get us tested a little bit.”

In the meantime, LSU must play better.

“I have a lot of confidence in what I believe this team can become,” Johnson said. “We’ve done a good job historically of being able to protect some flaws without costing us some (non-conference) games. We didn’t do that (against Northeastern). We didn’t play very good. We need to play cleaner defense. We made four errors. You’re not going to win to many games doing that.”