Michael Bacigalupi
By Hunt Palmer
OMAHA, Neb.—Sunday’s dogpile was a magical moment for 2025 champs. It was also a message to the college baseball universe.
The machine in Baton Rouge is up and running, and that can be a scary thing for the rest of the country.
Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews are generational talents. That term is wildly overused, but it applies to those two.
Skenes is the hardest throwing starter that most scouts have ever evaluated, and he started the MLB All-Star Game 12 months after he stepped off the mound in Omaha.
He’s the best pitcher in the history of the program.
Crews posted a three-year on base percentage of .498 and hit .426 as a senior. He’s the only position player to win the Golden Spikes Award at LSU.
He’s the best player in the history of the program.
The stars don’t align to have two talents like that on the same team too often. Jay Johnson took those two, a couple of key transfers and some veterans like Gavin Dugas, Cade Beloso, Alex Milazzo and Tre Morgan from the Paul Mainieri era and won a title.
Sunday’s celebration, just two years later, didn’t feature a single player who started in both title-clinching games.
Johnson overhauled the entire roster and produced the same result.
That’s not a generational team, it’s a program that is now full steam ahead with a leader who is the exact right fit for the job.
The composition of this team had a little bit of everything.
Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson were the backbone. Anderson, a Louisiana boy who dreamt of Saturday night, developed from a midweek arm to the nation’s best pitcher and College World Series Most Outstanding Player. Eyanson, a small school Southern California transfer, joined him to became the most fierce 1-2 punch in college baseball.
Jared Jones, Ethan Frey and Chase Shores trusted Johnson before he’d ever coached a game at LSU. They watched from the dugout as the 2023 team won it all. Jones was an All-Tournament Team selection this time around. Frey’s three-run double against Little Rock in the Regional helped get LSU to the biggest stage where he collected three more hits Sunday, and Shores threw the last pitch in Omaha.
Derek Curiel and Casan Evans were the prized freshman recruit that elite level programs have to battle the big leagues for in the draft. They showed up and looked like stars from February on.
Daniel Dickinson, Chris Stanfield, Michael Braswell, Zac Cowan and Luis Hernandez wanted a fresh start. Johnson and LSU gave them that. And they played pivotal roles all season long.
The list could continue, but the point is clear.
Johnson’s ability to manage a roster is as strong as anyone in college baseball, and he knows how to coach it, as well.
Every button Johnson pushed came up roses late in the season.
He used Eyanson out of the bullpen in the SEC Tournament because he knew he might need him a week later in close out a regional. They talked about it well before the situation ever played out. It worked.
He saved Evans for that Monday regional bullpen spot. The freshman right hander turned in his best work of the year against Little Rock.
He trusted Braswell to play third base even mired in a 1-for-a-million slump. Braswell turned in three massive defensive plays in a 1-0 win in the final.
He pinch hit Jake Brown against Arkansas on Wednesday. Brown drove in a pair of runs off Gaeckle who had looked unhittable.
He started Cowan on Wednesday after Cowan had struggled in the regional. Cowan gave LSU 5.1 innings of one-run ball against one of the best offenses in the country.
LSU won games any way they needed to.
The offense failed to produce much in the championship series. Anderson made one run stand up on Saturday, and Eyanson and Shores didn’t mind the seven zeros the Tiger offense posted Sunday.
Two weeks earlier, Anderson and Eyanson combined to allow 10 earned runs in the Super Regional. LSU’s offense scored 28.
The defense never flinched, and the wins just kept coming.
The next job is backing the title up. The last four national champions in college baseball have struggled mightily the following season.
Mississippi State and Ole Miss combined to post a combined SEC record of 15-45 following their titles. Both teams missed the NCAA Tournament. LSU backed its 2023 title up with a 3-12 SEC start and a regional loss at North Carolina. This year Tennessee lost six of its last seven SEC series and had to travel to Fayetteville for a Super Regional.
That championship hangover can bite.
Gone from this roster will be stars like Anderson, Eyanson, Shores, Jones and Dickinson.
Curiel, Milam, Brown and Evans highlight the returners. A new crop of blue chip recruits will descend on Baton Rouge in the fall. Some of the young players who watched this year, like Anderson and Brown did most of last year, will go off for summer ball and try to turn that corner from prospect to stand out.
With Johnson leading the way, that kind of development generally comes to pass.
The two-year gap between the most recent pair of titles feels more appropriate than the 14-year gap from 2023 to 2009.
Sunday cemented LSU’s place back atop the sport it ruled for nearly 20 years from 1991 to 2009. Five titles in 10 years is a run unlikely to be replicated by any program, but with Johnson at the helm, LSU is positioned for another golden era.
Make some room on The Intimidator.
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