Daybreak hadn’t neared when my hotel room door shut for the last time 12 months ago.
I’d slept 13 nights at the Ameristar in Council Bluffs just across the river from Omaha, and it was time to catch a 5:30am flight to St. Louis and onto New Orleans in time to dart up I-10 to host my 1:00pm radio show. Two weeks is a long time in a hotel, but I’d seen LSU hoist the hardware for the second time in three years.
The airport was flooded with purple and gold shirts, hats and suitcases. Bloodshot eyes hovered over lingering smiles. For the eighth time in history, that crew was going home happy.
I often believe LSU fans lack proper perspective in Omaha. That’s far from a knock on the fanbase. It’s just their reality. Like a tech billionaire’s 10-year-old child, all they know is the good life.
The Tigers have been to Omaha 20 times since 1986. That’s half the College World Series that have been played over 41 years. Since 1991, LSU’s first national title, LSU has paid off the trip north by winning the tournament on half the trips, eight of 16. That’s truly astounding.
I’d ingested this year’s NCAA Tournament from the outside. No games to cover. Long hours at the ballpark. Just baseball.
UCLA won 15 straight weekends to earn the top seed and promptly got bounced by St. Mary’s on its home field in regional play. Georgia Tech and Auburn had great seasons cut short of Omaha. Georgia went 32-7 against SEC teams, swept its regional and super and came up short of the final. Texas, which has won 41 regular season SEC games over the last two seasons, has all of one College World Series win to its name in that span.
Jim Schlossnagle practically gets his June mail in Omaha, and he doesn’t have a ring.
The Texas skipper has qualified for the College World Series eight times over three stops. His teams have won 18 games there and started 2-0 twice. No titles.
That’s some perspective.
Some of the best college baseball teams I’ve ever seen have fallen short of the final. Oregon State was 56-4 when their bats went cold against Alex Lange and Caleb Gilbert in 2017. Tennessee’s 2022 team looked unbeatable until Notre Dame did just that in the super. That Wake Forest team Paul Skenes and Tommy White sent home featured Nick Kurtz and Rhett Lowder who have made an impression in the big leagues, not to mention Brock Wilken who is perhaps the most decorated player in program history.
None of those team even played for a title.
In Baton Rouge, falling short feels unacceptable sometimes. Almost everywhere else, that’s just June.
We’ll be right back to those expectations in February. That’s how the calendar works around here. And that’s why LSU fans flock to Omaha in droves to eat steaks, drain kegs and take over the town. The expectations are fueled by passion and pedigree.
This year happens to have been a good one for a little perspective.
Winning a College World Series takes a stellar roster, excellent play and some breaks here and there. Sometimes the wind shifts like it did on LSU in 1998. Sometimes someone else gets hot. Sometimes the bats fall asleep.
If Ray Wright doesn’t rob a grand slam, LSU doesn’t win in 2000. If DJ LeMahieu doesn’t yank a two-out, two-run double down the line in the ninth, LSU doesn’t win in 2009. If Josh Pearson doesn’t snare Wyatt Langford’s line drive, LSU doesn’t win in 2023. If Charles Davalon doesn’t slip in left field, Kade Anderson has to face Arkansas in an elimination game instead of Coastal in the final last summer.
It all went LSU’s way.
Climbing the mountain is incredibly hard. LSU has just happened to make it look easy. The 2026 season felt like LSU paying the piper for some breaks last summer.
The Tigers will relinquish college baseball’s crown sometime in the next 72 hours. The Intimidator won’t need a fresh coat of paint.
Come February, none of this perspective will mean much to Tiger fans yearning for that summer staple of a trip.
They’ll be back home in Omaha soon.
