LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson wants to contend for national title in 2023
LSU head coach Jay Johnson made no secrets about the Tigers’ plans for the 2023 season: contend for a national championship. Of course, winning one is the ultimate goal for LSU, the preseason No. 1 team.
If you’re the preseason No. 1 team, there’s definitely an expectation to compete at the highest level. Johnson would have it no other way.
He joined Sirius XM’s SEC Radio to preview the season ahead.
“It’s funny because during part of the recruiting process, I was the only coach on staff during this time because my assistants got power five head coaching jobs,” Johnson said. “You know, I actually think it goes back a lot further than the summer time. It goes back to last year. We did a probably an underrated job in the transfer portal for the 2022 season. I’m very pleased with what we accomplished last year, winning 40 games, had the highest SEC finish for LSU in five or six years, and Jacob Berry had a lot to do with that. Tyler McManus had a lot to do with that. Riley Cooper had a lot to do with that. Eric Rezyelman had a lot to do with that.
“And when I looked at the transfer portal, it’s really hard to picture last year’s team without the guys that we added. So when we looked at this last summer coming up, we want to contend for a national championship. I want to high five coach Rooney in Omaha. So where were we short?”
Johnson addressed the needs of the team going into this spring and why he hit the transfer portal hard for noteworthy additions.
“We were short with starting pitching talent,” Johnson said. “And then we were going to lose Jacob Berry and Cade Doughty you know, first and second round draft picked hitters that were kind of the core of our lineup. So we addressed all of that in the portal this year. And it was pretty intense. It was pretty intentional with how we did what we did and very excited that we got the results of getting these guys on our team.
“They all bring something pretty unique from a player and person standpoint to this group. And we’re certainly going to be better because we have those five players.”