Jay Johnson reveals late night of SportsCenter, pizza after LSU clinched spot in College World Series

LSU head coach Jay Johnson had quite the night after the Tigers punched their ticket to the College World Series Finals against Coastal Carolina. It included SportsCenter and pizza, you know, just guys being dudes.

It was late at night and Johnson took some time to soak it all in. It included a nice visit from former player Tre’ Morgan, who plays for the Tampa Bay Rays’ AAA squad, was in town. 

But once Johnson settled in at nearly 3:00 a.m., he was hungry and wanted to see what his team just did. This is coming from a coach that’s already won a national title with this program.

“2:52, I’m just sitting in my room like that really just happened,” Johnson told Sirius XM. “I had a special visitor. Tre’ Morgan is triple A now, and they’re playing in Omaha. He cruised by my hotel for a few minutes and sat and chatted with him. And it was awesome to see him but, yeah, so I chatted with him for a little bit. I watched SportsCenter like five times. You know how they just keep replaying it? Because I was so locked in during the game, it was like, wow, that’s kind of cool, just to watch these highlights. And it’s awesome to have your program, you know, leading off SportsCenter and Scott Van Pelt and all that stuff.” 

It’s nice to see a sports media legend honor your program. But what about food? After all, Johnson went nearly two-thirds of the day without eating something. He was too in the moment after LSU punched their ticket to the finals.

“Well, I hadn’t eaten since like, 8:30 a.m. and didn’t even realize that, and so I ordered a Papa John’s pizza and sat here pepperoni pizza, watched the highlights,” Johnson said. “I really think there’s an art to this, to like, if you don’t enjoy what we just accomplished, and don’t let the players take a second to do that, it’s like, what the hell are we even doing this for? You know what I mean? 

“So I wanted them to enjoy last night with their families. We came back into the hotel, (it was an) awesome scene … And then we had a quick team meeting. Today we got today lined up as far as what we’re going to do, we’re going to keep it very similar to what we were doing in the back half of the season with the hitters and some guys got to throw and lift and all that. And then my rule for them is you advance around in the postseason, we go eat a steak. So at four o’clock tonight, they’re going to go eat a steak and, and then at 9:30, we’ll meet tonight.”