LSU is nearly through its first week of scrimmages. The 2026 season will be here before you know it when the Tigers host Milwaukee on Valentine’s weekend. 

Coming off a second championship in three seasons, the purple and gold have set the standard for consistency in college baseball. But they haven’t reached the apex of the sport by living in the past. This is a new team with new goals and new expectations for how they want this year to go.

“Thinking about this year and this team and setting a course for it, I think it’s really important. We’ll always appreciate what we did last year, but to move on to this year and be all in on right now, I think we have set a good blueprint of what it’s going to take to be successful, and those things aren’t really that much different,” Johnson said. 

“I think we have a group eager to do that because you have a number of guys that have experienced the very top of success, both with their individual performances and the highest level of team success. Having 19 returning players from last year is a good benefit. Then, kind of a hallmark or staple of what we do here is always placing LSU, the team, and the program above individual needs.”

Here were a few of the major topics that stood out to us on media days from Johnson’s press conference.

How the transfer infielders have adjusted to the program

Coming off one of the best defensive seasons in LSU baseball history, there’s a lot to replace from that group. Steven Milam is the lone returning starter for 2026 at shortstop, which is the most important to get right. But as we enter the spring, LSU really seems to be leaning into the group of transfers that it signed in Trent Caraway, Zach Yorke, Seth Dardar and Brayden Simpson to help fill those roles at the other positions. 

Caraway is a favorite to land the third base job while Yorke is looking like an early contributor at first. Dardar and Simpson are going to play plenty and are competing over at second base with Tanner Reaves for playing time. While the offense is a main reason why LSU brought in all of those players, it’s actually the defense that Jay Johnson has been pleasantly surprised with each of them. 

“They’ve acclimated well. I’ve probably under-sold or maybe had a lower opinion of where they were defensively coming in here and they’ve worked really hard at it,” Johnson said. “You’re talking about four players that were four of the better offensive players on their teams. They know that they have to contribute on both sides of the ball to be the player they want to be here.”

Hold the standard 

As we mentioned, you don’t reach the heights that LSU has accomplished by drawing too much on past experiences. For the players who have reached that championship level, they know what the expectation is. There are 19 players returning to the 2026 roster who were on that championship team a year ago and know the mindset it takes to be the last ones standing. 

“I want them to understand where they’re at and the high standard. That’s why one of the big things for us this year is ‘hold the standard.’ Hold a standard of high level of accountability, honoring the process, team over me and being totally focused on right now,” Johnson said. 

Those are basically the mantras the team is living by in 2026. We’ll have more on how this team is approaching this season coming off a championship run but that starts with upholding the standards that have been set the last few years. It’s a group that Johnson feels is more than capable of doing it at a high level. 

“There’s certain non-negotiables but I do feel like we have a team full of good guys. I think their challenges are going to be different. I like the starting point of being able to meet those,” Johnson said. 

Interesting answer when asked about NIL

You don’t hear a lot about baseball and NIL at LSU. Derek Curiel and Casan Evans were on the cover of the new Nike campaign that LSU has partnered with representing the baseball team. There is a donor base for baseball, one that Johnson and the Tigers are appreciative of. 

But it’s also not an aspect of the NIL space that gets talked about a lot. We know the pool of money that SEC teams have to work with from a direct revenue sharing perspective is just over $20 million. There’s a certain percentage that is allowed to go to football and LSU has maxed out that percentage. The rest gets divvied up by the university to the various sports how they see fit. 

“The rules have literally changed every single year in some way, shape or form with that. I’m very thankful for the people that have contributed to LSU baseball. You can’t survive without them,” Johnson said. “But with the rule changes with NIL, with revenue sharing, it’s a different issue now. It’s important that LSU continues to make baseball a priority and continues to invest on that side of revenue sharing. It’s a little bit more like the big leagues. Do you want to be the Dodgers or do you want to be a small market team? Schools are going to decide what kind of sports that they want to be good in.”

What helps LSU baseball is that the buy-in and prestige from a program perspective is second to none. There aren’t that many schools around the country that will pour the kind of resources LSU will into its baseball program. And that’s because of the devoted fan base that will pack Alex Box in the regular season and postseason atmospheres. 

“I think one thing that in this new landscape that helps us a little bit is this stadium’s full capacity. You know 500,000 people come through it on a yearly basis. So. The players have a marketing value, there’s actually a marketing value to them. They have the highest social media following on all the platforms,” Johnson said. 

“My hope is that the people and the school continue to give us the chance to be successful.”

Something Jay Johnson doesn’t think he’s seen before

Johnson’s not sure if he’s had a team that’s lost so much after reaching the top of the mountain but also returned so much at the same time. The purple and gold have a strong nucleus of returning pieces, whether it’s the entire starting outfield, Steven Milam at shortstop, Cade Arrambide at catcher or pitchers like Casan Evans, Zac Cowan, Cooper Williams, Mavrick Rizy and William Schmidt who have all played meaningful roles on a championship team. 

Many of those were freshmen, who can now set the example for the eight new high school signees looking to make a mark on the program early in their careers. Pitchers Marcos Paz and Reagan Ricken will be right in the middle of plans on the pitching side, even if it’s starting their careers as bullpen arms. 

Jack Ruckert, William Patrick and Ethan Crauss on the position player side will have a harder time carving out roles with so many veterans in front of them. Regardless, there’s a blueprint for all of those players to follow when looking at the success of the freshmen class from just a year ago, all of whom have returned as sophomores in 2026.  

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this, where we lost so much contribution from a team that reached the pinnacle, and we return so much from a team that reached the pinnacle,” Johnson said. “It’s probably a credit to recruiting and balance. We have not sold out to just Portal City. We’ve developed really good high school players here. And I think last year’s freshman class, and I said it in this thing, it was by far the best group of freshmen that we have brought in.

“The impact that has— is you can go to a really talented freshman understand kind of how this can go here for some of the best guys.”