This was last Friday in Omaha and the off-day before the Men’s College World Series championship finals were to start. LSU coach Jay Johnson was walking around Charles Schwab Field, alone with his thoughts, when his phone alerted him to a text.
It was a good-luck message from someone on his 2016 Arizona team, the bunch of Wildcats who were close enough to the title to sense what the dogpile would feel like, but lost two one-run games to Coastal Carolina. “Literally one of the most painful moments in my life,” Johnson called it. That team still communicates via group text and Johnson wanted his former players to know his feelings.
“I said when we get this done, that’s partly going to be for you guys,” he said.
When. Not if.
He was ready for what was to come. So, it turned out, was his team.
🏆: LSU takes down Florida to win program's 7th Men's College World Series title
In the end, LSU’s last step to glory — dominating, historic glory — was a testament to talent, to purpose and to the value of a short memory in baseball.
About that 24-4 loss on Sunday? What 24-4 loss?
A Men’s College World Series that was wildly unconventional from nearly its first pitch had one last dizzying turn in the road that defied logic or explanation. A 34-run swing in 28 hours that made LSU the national champions without dispute. For it was just not how the Tigers clinched the title in Omaha Monday night with an 18-4 rout of Florida, a day after getting absolutely, positively buried by 20 runs. It was all they had to endure to get to there.
Consider the regular-season stumbles that cost them the No. 1 ranking and created doubt — in the outside world, anyway — that this massively gifted and touted roster might not be up to the task. The early loss to Wake Forest in the MCWS that assigned them to the perilous road of the loser’s bracket. Sunday’s pummeling that put them on the wrong end of a batch of new entries in the record book and might have haunted them, had they let it linger. "Flush it" is the operative term used to quickly forget a bad day. Obviously, that 24-4 score swirled down the drain in a hurry.
“We got punched in the mouth yesterday,” Dylan Crews said. “But that’s the beauty of baseball. You get to wake up in the morning and do it all over again. So as soon as the game was over, everybody already forgot about it.”
Added teammate Cade Beloso: “You can’t let baseball get to you. The game’s brutal sometimes.”
Yeah, so the Florida Gators noticed Monday night.
No, none of the above stopped LSU as it pushed through the past week in Omaha with foot-to-the-floor baseball. The Tigers went 4-0 in elimination games, threw two shutouts, survived two 11-inning classics and put a bow on it all Monday night by doing unto Florida what the Gators had done unto them the day before.
“I really believe this will go down as one of the best teams in college baseball history,” Johnson said. “They are a worthy champion if there ever was a worthy champion.”
As the celebration commenced Monday night in Charles Schwab Field, the coach tried to stuff all that had happened into one sentence.
“Right people, right place, right time,” Johnson said.
Ain’t that the truth?
They had the right coach.
Johnson is a national champion at LSU in only his second season. No one had ever won a title that quickly at any school. But then, he almost was a national champion at Arizona in his first season. This guy gets things done in a hurry.
Confetti Showers >>>> pic.twitter.com/noVrHmxhuP
— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) June 27, 2023
He went to Baton Rouge fully understanding the pressure of the place. The lofty and unforgiving expectations of a program that owned six national championships, and packs them in at 11,000 fans a home game. That’s more than the Oakland A’s and almost as many as the Miami Marlins.
“I don’t ever really think about it because that would distract me from doing what it takes to accomplish it,” he said Monday of understanding that a coach has to win trophies at LSU. “And I know that sounds super weird but I’m not a normal dude in that regard.”
Besides, one big plus in taking the Tigers’ job. He knew he had a bunch of really good players. “The ride of a lifetime,” he said Monday night of LSU baseball, circa 2023.
But he never has forgotten his Arizona Wildcats, and how close they came.
“This championship is for this team and it’s about this team,” Johnson said Monday night. “But personally, part of me feels like I got a little bit of that back tonight for those guys.”
They had the right roster.
Balanced, deep, led by glittering star power.
By the final out Monday night, Crews had scored 100 runs this season and reached base in all 71 games. Tommy White had 105 RBIs. Paul Skenes, who wasn’t even needed on short rest with LSU ahead big early, had struck out 209 batters. These are numbers of greatness. Skenes was named Most Outstanding Player in Omaha for his shutdowns of Tennessee and Wake Forest.
Crews became the first man in 28 years to win both the Golden Spikes Award as the nation’s top player and the championship the same season. “The best player in college baseball history in my opinion,” Johnson said.
And there was more. With everything on the table Monday night, 11 different Tigers had hits and nine drove in runs. The offense that came in hitting only .219 for the MCWS produced 10 runs before the fourth inning was over, and 24 hits for the game.
Meanwhile, the LSU pitchers struck out 103 batters in Omaha and walked only 27. Throw out Sunday’s anomaly and they gave up 15 runs in seven games.
Come Major League Baseball draft day, it should become very clear why LSU was so hard to beat. Skenes may well go No. 1. Crews might well go No. 2. Or vice versa.
In other words, the Tigers came at the Omaha field in determined waves. “We have a saying around here,” Beloso said. “Don’t dream, because if you dream about it, it seems unreachable. But set a goal and reach it. And the sky’s the limit.”
They came from the right conference.
This was the fifth national championship for the SEC in the past six non-pandemic seasons — by five different schools. Look who LSU had to fight through in June to get to this high point. Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida.
🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) June 27, 2023
5 of the last 6.
4 in a row.
not a single repeat.
In the @SEC, college baseball just means more. 😤#MCWS x #ItJustMeansMore pic.twitter.com/MDYQ0UahYj
So mighty is the SEC, and so resilient was LSU, that Florida could account for 17 of the 35 home runs hit this year in Omaha to match a MCWS record, get five homers from Ty Evans to set an individual record, hit 10 long balls in the finals to set another record and it all still not be enough to beat one of its cousins.
They have the right pedigree.
This makes seven titles for LSU. Only USC has more with 12, but the Tigers are the modern championship collectors. All seven have come since 1991. USC has won only one in the past 45 years, and that was 1998.
TITLES: Here are the programs with the most Men's College World Series titles
And the latest LSU journey was arduous. In disposing of Wake Forest and Florida, the Tigers became only the third national champion to take out both No. 1 and No. 2 seeds.
“The national championship means more because of who we beat to win the national championship,” Johnson said.
“I feel all boxes are checked off now,” Crews said.
For himself, for his teammates, for his coach, for the fervent masses that follow his program. In many ways with all its records, this was a Men’s College World Series for the ages. In many ways, the same goes for its champion.
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