LSU won the College World Series two of the past three seasons, and the Tigers have a legitimate shot to become the first NCAA Division I baseball program since the University of Southern California was dominating during the early 1970s to take three national championships in a four-year span.
Jay Johnson, the first D-I baseball coach to win multiple national titles in his first four years leading a program, clearly likes the team he’ll put on the field when the Tigers open their 2026 season Friday in Baton Rouge, where Milwaukee is the opponent for a three-game weekend series.
Still, he doesn’t want to hear any talk of repeating in February, considering the hard lesson his Tigers learned the year after they won it all in 2023 as a different Southeastern Conference team was the one celebrating at the 2024 season’s end in Omaha, Nebraska: the Tennessee Volunteers, who won their first national championship to cap their seventh College World Series appearance.
“We’ll always appreciate what we did last year, but we have to move on to this year and be all in on right now,” Johnson said. “I think we have set a good blueprint of what it’s going to take to be successful, and those things really aren’t that much different. The jungle we play in, which is the best conference in any sport across the country, requires your absolute best.”
LSU, which extended the SEC’s stranglehold on the CWS title to six years, enters the season ranked No. 1 in the writers’ and coaches’ polls and by Perfect Game, with the Tigers listed as No. 2 behind UCLA by Baseball America and D1 Baseball. Other high-rated teams include 2025 CWS runner-up Coastal Carolina, Texas, Georgia Tech, Arkansas, Mississippi State, North Carolina, Auburn, Louisville and TCU.