By TODD HORNE, Executive Editor
Every January, Glenn Guilbeau and I find ourselves back in Jay Johnson’s office at Alex Box Stadium, tape recorders rolling, ready to kick off another Tiger Rag preseason guide. This marks Jay’s fifth season at the helm, and you’d be forgiven for thinking he’s already reached the mountaintop: two College World Series rings in the last three years (2023 and 2025) have LSU fans dreaming dynasty. So when I leaned in and asked the question on everyone’s mind—“Are you thinking more about the number three or the number nine?”—I fully expected Jay to flash that trademark grin before diving into championship-chasing bravado.
Instead, he paused, brow furrowed. “Three or nine?” he repeated, genuine curiosity etched in his voice. I clarified: “Are you focused on winning your third national title here, or the program’s ninth overall—five under Skip Bertman, one under Paul Mainieri, plus yours?” Silence hung over the office for a beat, punctuated only by the silence since we were the only souls in the stadium or offices.
Then Jay exhaled, leaned back in his chair, and delivered what felt like a graduate seminar on coaching philosophy.
“I don’t even think about that,” he said, shaking his head. “That number stuff — that’s so far down the road. And frankly, it’s disrespectful to the way I want these guys to think.”
No dodging. No spin. Just a flat-out refusal to let trophies become the compass. Johnson’s world is one of increments, daily habits, and sweat-soaked to-do lists, not scoreboard fantasies.
“We talk about this all the time,” he continued. “When you’re coaching here and you’re playing here, what’s the goal? Omaha. National champion. That’s it. We don’t need to frame it as a lofty achievement—because that’s why we’re here. End of story.”
He’s not quashing ambition – far from it. Under his watch, LSU baseball has clawed back to the national conversation, and the program hums with the promise of more. But the difference between Jay and so many others is the way he treats ambition as a byproduct, not a bullet point on the bulletin board.
“I’ve been lucky to learn from greats — Augie Garrido, Mike Gillespie, and of course Skip,” he said, ticking off names like baseball savants etched into his DNA. “I still study Bertman’s blueprint and hit his house every week. Everything is about laying out the path: day one, day two, day three. Position yourself for success.”
He flashed back to 2024—a season that felt like a grind. LSU stumbled through a brutal SEC road gauntlet, finished squarely in the middle of the pack, yet still notched 43 wins and a postseason berth. “I’m really proud of what we did in ’24,” he said. “Forty-three wins, given where we were—that’s real growth.” Notice he didn’t trot out rankings or rings; he talked experience, confidence, lessons learned.
It’s a creed he’s preached since arriving from Arizona in 2022, but January 2026 felt different. With two rings already in the trophy case, the “three or nine” question forced him to reckon with legacy itch—a temptation that comes with sustained success. Jay chose to sidestep it entirely.
“You have to surrender a little,” he noted later, referencing the gauntlet of Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Texas, Auburn—everybody’s loaded now. “There’s no straight line to glory. You can’t say, ‘Just do X, and we’ll get Y.’ You focus on doing your job as well as you can, every single day.”
That, in a nutshell, is Jay Johnson’s sermon: control the controllables, trust the grind, let the hardware accumulate in its own sweet time. Whether LSU walks away in 2026 with Jay’s third ring or the program’s ninth — or misses out — the point remains the same. Show up every day with intensity, humility, and a relentless commitment to getting better.
In an era dominated by transfer-portal drama, revenue-share ripples, and a million outside voices, Johnson’s refusal to chase “three or nine” feels like a blueprint for sustainable greatness.
After all, if those deliberate, unglamorous steps lead to another Omaha sunset or another post-season celebration under the bright lights of Alex Box, so be it. The trophies will take care of themselves.
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