LSU baseball’s Derek Curiel on LSU’s defense during NCAA Tournament
LSU baseball freshman leftfielder Derek Curiel details how the team has performed on defense during the NCAA Tournament so far.
LSU has a rich baseball tradition that has few peers across the Division I level.
The Tigers have won the College World Series seven times, the second-most of any program, and have made it to college baseball’s preeminent event 19 times. This year, after a 16-9 victory against West Virginia in the first game of the Baton Rouge Super Regional, they’re one game away from their 20th trip to Omaha, Nebraska, where they could add yet another title to an already crowded trophy case.
It would be simply the latest achievement for the program under its current leadership.
Jay Johnson has burnished his reputation as one of the best coaches in college baseball since being hired at LSU back in 2021. The Tigers have won at least 40 games in each of Johnson’s four seasons, a stretch highlighted by the 2023 CWS championship, when they defeated Florida in three games to cap off a 54-17 season.
This season, LSU yet again looks like a viable threat to win a national title, with a No. 6 national seed and a 47-15 record.
As the Tigers get closer to a return to Omaha, here’s a closer look at Johnson and his career:
Jay Johnson career
Johnson is in his fourth season at LSU, where he was hired in June 2021 to take over the recently retired (but since un-retired) Paul Mainieri.
In his time at LSU, his teams have not only won — with two regional championships to their name — but have also featured and developed major-league talent, a group headlined by Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews, who went with the No. 1 and No. 2 picks, respectively, in the 2023 MLB Draft after leading the Tigers to the 2023 College World Series championship.
During that 2023 season, Johnson was voted national coach of the year by D1 Baseball, the American Baseball Coaches Association and Collegiate Baseball. LSU’s championship that season was its first since 2009.
Over his nearly four full seasons with the Tigers, Johnson’s teams have gone 184-77. With LSU’s regional-winning 10-6 triumph against Little Rock on June 2, Johnson picked up his 500th career victory. Entering this season, he had the third-most victories of any college baseball coach (137) over the previous three seasons, from 2022-24.
“I view this as the opportunity of my lifetime,” Johnson said when he was hired by LSU. “And I will do everything in my power to have our team playing a brand of baseball that makes everyone at LSU, the Baton Rouge community and the entire state of Louisiana incredibly proud.”
Johnson arrived in Baton Rouge after a decorated six-year run at Arizona in which he led the Wildcats to two CWS appearances. In 2016, Arizona made it all the way to the CWS championship series, where it lost in three games to Coastal Carolina. After winning the first game of the three-game series 3-0, the Wildcats lost each of the final two games by one run.
Johnson’s Arizona teams were regularly among some of the most potent in the country. The Wildcats led the Pac-12 in hits, runs and on-base percentage in four of Johnson’s five full seasons.
He earned the opportunity at Arizona after two seasons at Nevada, where he led the Wolf Pack to a Mountain West championship and won conference coach of the year honors in 2015. He has one season of Division II head-coaching experience, as well, having led the program at his alma mater, Point Loma Nazarene, for one season when he was 27 years old.
At his various coaching stops, the California native has produced 30 MLB players, 70 MLB draft selections (including 27 at LSU) and 34 top-10 picks (including 16 at LSU).
Here’s a school-by-school look at Johnson’s coaching career (head coach unless otherwise specified):
- 2022-present: LSU
- 2016-21: Arizona
- 2014-15: Nevada
- 2006-13: San Diego associate head coach
- 2005: Point Loma Nazarene
- 2002-04: Point Loma Nazarene assistant coach
Jay Johnson record
Over his head-coaching career, Johnson has racked up an overall record of 501-249, which includes a 37-16 mark in NCAA tournament play.
He has gone 184-77 at LSU, a mark that includes a 20-7 record in the NCAA tournament.
Jay Johnson salary
As of last year, Johnson was the fifth-highest-paid college baseball coach, at $1.79 million per year, ranking him behind only Tennessee’s Tony Vitello, Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin, Florida’s Kevin O’Sullivan and Texas Tech’s Tim Tadlock.
In October 2023, about four months after the CWS championship, Johnson signed a seven-year, $12.55 million extension that contractually ties him to the school through the 2030 season.
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