LSU Baseball is Back Baby!

By Garrett Lumpkin

It has been nine long years since the LSU Tigers last won the College World Series, but there is a very good chance that the streak will end later this month. The Tigers are wrapping up their most impressive season since that last national title back in 2000.

LSU won all five of its baseball national championships in a ten year stretch between 1991 and 2000. With that kind of success, LSU Tiger fans grew to expect a run at the national title every year, or at least an annual trip to Omaha, Nebraska, site of the College World Series.
However, that has not been the case for much of the last decade.

Since Skip Bertman stepped down as head coach of the LSU baseball program in 2001, the Tigers have produced some pretty good results. But in Baton Rouge, pretty good is not good enough for the LSU baseball program.

Longtime LSU assistant coach Smoke Laval succeeded Bertman as head coach of the Tigers in 2002, and learned just how hard it is to replace a legend. Laval experienced some highlights at LSU as he led the Tigers to the College World Series in 2003 and 2004. However, LSU went 0-2 on each of those trips to Omaha and looked nothing like the dominant Tiger teams of the 1990’s.

Things started going downhill for Laval and the Tigers after that. In 2005 LSU failed to win a NCAA Regional in Baton Rouge for the first time in 11 years. Then in 2006 the Tigers won just 35 games, their lowest win total since Bertman’s rookie year in 1984, and weren’t even invited to the NCAA Tournament.

It was time for a change, and Smoke Laval was forced to resign after the 2006 season.
In June of 2006 LSU began an extensive nationwide search for its next head coach. Notre Dame Head Coach Paul Mainieri was familiar with LSU baseball having played one season for the Tigers in 1976. He saw the potential in Baton Rouge and decided to leave Notre Dame for LSU.

During his initial press conference Mainieri made it very clear that he understood the tradition of LSU baseball.

“Make no mistake about it,” Mainieri said, “The goal is to return LSU to the pinnacle position in college baseball. I have all the confidence in the world that we can do that here.”

When Mainieri took over in 2007, the LSU baseball program was in rough shape. The Tigers won only 29 games that season and finished tenth in the SEC, their worst conference finish since 1955.

The 2008 season looked like more of the same as the Tigers were hovering around the .500 mark at 23-16-1 with four weeks remaining in the regular season. At that point Mainieri’s record at LSU was 52-42-2 and I’m sure that many LSU baseball fans were questioning the hire.

Then something amazing happened. LSU went on to win its next 23 games, establishing a new SEC record for consecutive wins. Mainieri was named the college baseball coach of the year, and LSU won its first game at the College World Series since the championship game in 2000. The 49 victories were also the most for LSU since 2000 when the Tigers won 52 games.

The 2009 season began with great expectations as LSU entered the year ranked number one in the nation.

That preseason ranking, the strong finish to the 2008 season, and the fact that the Tigers were opening up a new ballpark in 2009, put LSU under the microscope all season long.

With all of that pressure, the Tigers have performed remarkably, never once even dropping out of the top ten in the college baseball polls. LSU started the season with a bang winning its first nine games of the year. The Tigers went on to win the SEC regular season championship, and their second straight SEC Tournament championship. The Tigers swept their NCAA Regional in Baton Rouge 3-0, and also swept Rice in the Super Regional 2-0.

LSU is back in Omaha, and for the first time since 2000, the Tigers are one of the favorites to win it all. They started the College World Series with victories over Virginia and Arkansas. That’s significant because 17 of the last 19 College World Series champions began the tournament 2-0.

If LSU wins the national championship, that would give the Tigers six titles which would tie them with Texas. Only Southern California has more College World Series championships with 12.