GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
The beauty of the mostly disfigured and flawed NCAA Transfer Portal is in the eye of the beholder.
And LSU coach Jay Johnson accidentally found himself on the beholding end as he prepared to play Wofford in the opener of the NCAA Regional at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, last year. For Wofford, this is not a beautiful memory.
“We just happened to play Wofford in the Regional, and even though we didn’t face him, I’m looking all week at Zac Cowan,” Johnson told Tiger Rag recently.
Cowan, a Blythewood, South Carolina, native, was the sophomore ace right-hander last season for Wofford, a private liberal arts college of 1,800 undergraduates in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He entered that Regional at 9-2 on the season with a 1.19 ERA. At this moment, he is 2-0 for LSU with a 1.42 ERA through five relief appearances with 14 strikeouts and one walk through 12 and two-thirds innings.
Mid 6 | Zac Cowan tosses a clean sixth
— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) March 5, 2025
NDSU – 9
LSU – 7 pic.twitter.com/ABWF21pT9P
It was Cowan who got the 11-9 win over North Dakota State Tuesday with a one-hitter over two and two-thirds innings of relief in the sixth-through-eighth innings with three strikeouts and no walks.
No. 1 LSU (12-1) plays North Dakota State (1-10) against Wednesday night at 6:30.
“I love him,” Johnson said after using Cowan twice on the 4-0 Texas road trip last week. He got the 7-3 win over Dallas Baptist with three innings of relief in which he allowed one run on two hits with five strikeouts and a walk.
“He’s one of our best pitchers, and he’ll be pitching a lot,” Johnson said.
But Cowan’s name was on none of Johnson’s voluminous recruiting lists until late May of last year. But serendipity struck.
“As I’m watching him before the Regional last year, I’m thinking, ‘Nobody in the country may know how good a pitcher Zac Cowan could be,'” Johnson said. “But I do, because we were preparing for him.”
Luckily for Johnson perhaps, Cowan did not pitch against LSU in a 4-3 Wofford loss to the Tigers on May 31. He threw the next day for a 5-2 win over Long Island University in which he threw a seven-hit shutout over six innings with six strikeouts and a walk on 101 pitches. That was the first NCAA postseason victory in Wofford history.
Amazing about that was the fact that Johnson had watched video of Cowan throwing 102 pitches on May 26 in the Southern Conference Tournament to beat Samford 10-9 with seven strikeouts and one walk through seven innings in which he allowed four runs on eight hits. More amazing about that was the fact that Cowan also threw 102 pitches on May 22 to beat The Citadel, 8-3, on five hits and a run through six and two-thirds innings with six strikeouts and a walk.
“I had no idea about him,” Johnson told Tiger Rag. “Until we get the matchup with Wofford, and the first thing I do when I walk in my office is pull out the pitching stats and say, ‘Who’s the guy?’ And then you peel back the season’s numbers, and, ‘Oh, good God, wow, this guy’s pretty good!'”
That’s when Johnson dug deeper.
“I see he pitched twice in the Southern Conference Tournament and threw more than 200 pitches in five days,” he said. “So, he’s not pitching against us. We dodged a bullet.”
And Johnson soon added one.
“Just after the season, I see his name in the portal,” he said and snapped his fingers. “We can act quickly. When you have the benefit of being LSU, which Skip Bertman built, it creates another opportunity.”
Cowan is not one of LSU’s fastest throwers, but he’s a pitcher.
“Preparing for him gave me an appreciation for the fact that if you just pull up the velocity numbers or video, you may not see it,” Johnson said.
All the while, Cowan did not realize he was under surveillance.
“I had no idea I’d end up here,” he said recently. “It was kind of a full-circle moment in a sense, because we played them in the Regional. So, it was kind of crazy how it all came together.”
Cowan was looking to leave, though, after setting the Wofford record for strikeouts in a season with 124 last year in going 10-2 with a 3.35 ERA.
“I needed to take the next step in development,” Cowan said. “I felt like I had given everything at Wofford. And I felt like in order for me to take that next step, I needed to come to a place like this. Learn how to adapt, but not change who you are. One of my strengths is having a calm demeanor, and I think that translates to this level. LSU so far has been great.”
And Cowan has delivered under pitching coach Nate Yeskie with a four-seam fastball, a changeup, an improving slider and a new pitch – a sinker.
“I love coach Yeskie,” he said. “I want to be one of the guys that the coaches rely on. And I think I can give that. It goes back to preparation. I know who I am, and I’m not going to try to over-perform, try to over-do things. It really goes back to the work you put in every day.”
Cowan, who relieved as a freshman at Wofford before becoming the ace last year, has been a middle reliever so far at LSU.
“You have to realize what the team needs,” he said.
Johnson realized swiftly he needed Cowan last May.
“Our first conversation after the season was that he immediately wanted to get me on a visit,” Cowan said. “He said he loved how I pitched and thought I could do great for the team. I fell in love with everything here. I thought LSU played really hard at Chapel Hill, and I thought they were coached by a great guy. That is the reason why I’m here.”
So, Johnson left Chapel Hill with a heartbreak after losing to North Carolina, 4-3, in 10 innings in the Regional championship game. Had LSU won, it would have hosted West Virginia in the Super Regional in Alex Box, which means the Tigers would have likely reached another College World Series.
“Other than losing the national championship game in 2016 (also 4-3 to Coastal Carolina as Arizona’s coach), that was the toughest loss of my entire career,” Johnson said.
But he left with a new pitcher, quite by chance.
“So, sometimes,” he said, “you just get lucky.”
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