There are always plenty of storylines going into any opening day, but this year, one stood above them all; a new era in Baton Rouge began as Jay Johnson coached his first game for LSU.
The game started with legendary former LSU Coach Paul Mainieri throwing out the first pitch to Johnson which felt like a literal passing of the torch. Mainieri spent the previous 15 years coaching the Tigers and led them to a National Championship in the 2009 season. This would leave big shoes to fill for any coach stepping into this position, but Johnson from the day he was hired knew and embraced the expectations and challenges that come with being the head baseball coach at LSU.
The game itself went as many expected. LSU dominated; the offense came alive late and Blake Money proved he has what it takes to be the Friday night starter, pitching seven shutout innings and striking out 10 batters. Johnson was lauded by many for what he did with the roster in the offseason, and that had a major effect on the offensive performance tonight. JUCO transfer Brayden Jobert opened the scoring with an absolue bomb of a solo home run in the fourth inning and finished 2-2 with two RBIs on the night. Jobert was one of many new faces expected to bolster LSU’s offense and tonight was just a small taste of what may be to come from the Sophomore out of Slidell.
“I was just glad to get an opportunity,” Jobert said, having entered the game as a replacement for the injured Cade Beloso. “Fortunately for me it ended up as a homerun, but I’m very fortunate to have that opportunity and I’m very glad we came out with a win.”
It is never a good idea to over-analyze a college baseball team’s opening night performance, but when it’s the first game under a new coach, fans are eager to have all their questions answered on night one. There is not a whole lot that can be gathered from LSU beating up on an objectively bad Maine team, but this game was the culmination of the last eight months that Johsnon has spent shaping this team and program in his image.
Ever since Skip Bertman took over in 1984 and turned LSU into a powerhouse, the program has had the winning DNA and mentality it takes to compete at the highest level. From Bertman to Mainieri, LSU remained a powerhouse, so an overhaul of the program was not what LSU was looking for. However, finding a coach who can step into a situation with immense pressure like LSU and keep things going while running the program his own way is not easy to find and Johnson’s work this offseason had fans excited that LSU found that coach in Johnson.
From his work in the transfer portal, to signing the No. 1 recruiting class, Johnson proved his work ethic behind the scenes early, and the only thing fans were still waiting to see was the performance of his team. This in itself brings pressure, and that could be felt as the game featured little action going into the bottom of the fourth inning. In the bottom of the fourth however, Jobert’s homerun got the party started for the Tigers and the rest of the game personified the excitement and promise that came from Johnson’s first offseason in Baton Rouge.
“It was awesome,” Johnson said, talking about how it felt to finally make his debut.
The next national championship is hardly built in one game, but this game was the perfect opportunity for the big ball of excitement created by the offseason to finally burst. Bertman and Manieri both joined Johnson on the field before the game and the result and performance from the team was one that very much fit the standard set by those two men.
