GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Now this is one example of conference realignment that makes real horse sense, and not horse you know what.
LSU and Texas – natural east-west border conference rivals waiting to happen for more than a century in baseball, basketball and football – will play for the first time in a Southeastern Conference baseball game on Friday in Austin, Texas, at 6,985-seat Disch-Falk Field (7 p.m., SEC Network).
It is the premier college baseball pairing in the nation with games two and three follow Saturday and Sunday at 6 p.m. and 2 p.m. on SEC Network+.
But the No. 2 Tigers (21-2, 3-0 SEC) and No. 5 Longhorns (17-2, 3-0 SEC) have been basically already playing in the same conference since 1986 – the College World Series Conference (CWSC), headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, that is.
These two titans of college baseball have more shared history than Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call in “Lonesome Dove.”
No one has gone to the CWS more than Texas, which has 38 appearances beginning in 1949. LSU joined the CWS-C in 1986 and is tied for seventh with 19 appearances. The Tigers lead the Longhorns in winning it all, though, with seven national championships (1991, ’93, ’96, ’97, 2000, ’09 and ’23) for second all time to USC’s 12 from 1948-98. Texas has six (1949, ’50, ’75, ’83, 2002 and ’05), but also has a half dozen runner-up finishes (1953, ’84, ’85, ’89, 2004 and ’09). LSU made Texas the bridesmaid in that last one in ’09, two games to one in the national championship series.
If you attended a World Series from 1986 through 2023, chances are you would have seen Texas or LSU or both wrapping up their season-long cattle drive of wins in Omaha. One or the other or both were there in 25 of those 38 years.
“Let’s call it what it is,” said LSU coach Jay Johnson, who won the 2023 national title with the Tigers. “It’s two historic programs, and I think it will be one of the marquee matchups in college baseball this year.”
And it could happen again in Hoover, Alabama, at the SEC Tournament in May or at an NCAA Super Regional in Austin or in Baton Rouge or at the CWS in Omaha in June.
“Can’t wait, honestly,” Johnson said. “It’ll be great, man. Excited for what should be a great opponent. Obviously, two great programs”
It will be the first great opponent LSU plays all season and its first prolonged major test over a weekend as the Tigers have the No. 290 schedule in D1Baseball’s rankings and have mainly played teams with losing records and real bad losing records. Only Dallas Baptist was ranked.
“We’re going to be an improved team at the end of this series, no matter what the outcome of the games,” Johnson said.
LSU is No. 3 in the nation in batting average at .345 and No. 5 in slugging percentage at .589. Texas is No. 10 in earned run average at 3.22, while LSU is No. 14 at 3.32. And LSU is 24th in home runs with 36 to Texas’ 32nd with 29 homers.
PITCHING MATCH-UPS
FRIDAY – Sophomore left-hander Kade Anderson (4-0, 2.57 ERA, 28 innings, 48 strikeouts, 8 walks), LSU, vs. senior left-hander Jared Spencer (2-0, 2.36 ERA, 26 and two-thirds innings, 36 strikeouts, 10 walks).
SATURDAY – Junior right-hander Anthony Eyanson (3-0, 3.90 ERA, 27 and two-thirds innings, 40 strikeouts, 6 walks), LSU, vs. junior left-hander Luke Harrison (2-0, 2.08 ERA, 21 and two-thirds innings, 24 strikeouts, 10 walks).
SUNDAY – Sophomore right-hander Chase Shores (4-0, 3.80 ERA, 23 and two-thirds innings, 27 strikeouts, 20 walks), LSU, vs. To Be Announced.
“National championship-caliber teams,” first-year Texas coach Jim Schlossnagle said on “The Morning Kickoff” radio show this week on 1300 AM in Austin. “Certainly going to be some elite level baseball played.”
Schlossnagle, a former Tulane assistant who took TCU to five World Series from 2010-17, at one time would have liked to have been in the LSU dugout for this historical tightly intertwined series. He wanted the LSU job badly during the summer of 2021 when Arizona coach Jay Johnson and Ole Miss coach and former LSU player and assistant Mike Bianco were in the running to replace LSU coach Paul Mainieri, who retired because of chronic back and neck pain at the time.
When it became clear LSU athletic director Scott Woodward was preparing to hire Johnson, Schlossnagle accepted the job at Texas A&M, which he had put on hold during LSU’s search. He proceeded to take the Aggies to Omaha twice in three years, including the national championship series last year, but fell 6-5 to Tennessee in game three. Then he bolted for Texas.
Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte had also considered Johnson, but his main target was Schlossnagle. Del Conte was Schlossnagle’s athletic director when they were both at TCU.
Joining Schlossnagle at Texas was former LSU pitcher and recruiting coordinator Nolan Cain, who was on LSU’s 2009 national championship team under Mainieri. Cain, who pitched in the national title series against Texas in 2009, is married to former LSU softball player Kristen Hobbs. Cain coached under Mainieri from 2014-21 and was one of the nation’s best recruiting coordinators over those last five seasons. He became Texas A&M’s recruiting coordinator under Schlossnagle before the 2022 season.
Mainieri might still be Texas’ coach tonight had he accepted the offer after the 2016 season when Texas was looking for a replacement for Augie Garrido, who was forced out following the 2016 season after winning national titles in 2002 and ’05. Mainieri likely would have brought Cain with him.
Mainieri was ready to move to Austin as then-LSU athletic director Joe Alleva made no move to keep him despite the 2009 national championship, four CWS appearances from 2008 through 2015 and three SEC regular season titles over that span. This may have been because the non-communicative Alleva was not aware that Texas was actually about to hire his coach.
In the bottom of the ninth inning, though, former LSU baseball coach and athletic director Skip Bertman called Alleva to tell him that a Mainieri move to Texas was imminent, and he better talk to him. Alleva responded with a significant raise and contract extension for Mainieri. Texas soon hired Tulane head coach David Pierce, whom Schlossnagle would replace eight years later. Pierce just became the head coach at Rice.
Mainieri made Alleva – but really Bertman – look like a genius as Mainieri enjoyed one of his greatest seasons the next year in 2017 as he directed the Tigers to his fourth SEC regular season title and the national championship series before losing to Florida. Mainieri, now 67, saw his health improve drastically amid three years of retirement, and he is now in his first season as South Carolina’s coach.
There was not as much off-diamond drama when LSU and Texas began playing baseball in 1899 with an 8-6 Tigers’ loss to the Longhorns in Baton Rouge. Texas also swept LSU in Austin that season, 3-0, 5-4 and 4-1. The Longhorns lead the all time series 28-15-1. But LSU has won three of the last four – 6-3 in Houston last year, 3-0 in Austin in 2023 and 4-3 in Houston in 2020. Texas won 6-1 in 2022 in Houston.
The Tigers have lost their three most recent series in Austin as they were swept in 2019 and lost two of three in 1998 and in 1994. Texas also took two of three in Baton Rouge to open the 1999 season.
LSU has ruled in Omaha, though. After Texas and coach Cliff Gustafson eliminated Bertman’s Tigers and pitching great Ben McDonald from the CWS in 1989 with a 12-7 win, LSU has won three of four in the CWS. Bertman beat his rival Garrido and the Longhorns, 13-5, in a CWS opener in 2000 before the Tigers went on to win it all and claim Bertman’s fifth national title in 10 years. That gave Bertman a 5-3 lead over Garrido in national titles at the time. Bertman retired after the next season from coaching and took over as LSU athletic director in 2001.
LSU’S SKIP BERTMAN AND TEXAS’ AUGIE GARRIDO MET ONE LAST TIME IN 2018
That 2000 win over Garrido was sweet as Garrido is the only coach in college baseball history to win an NCAA Regional at Alex Box Stadium with Bertman as the LSU coach. And he did it twice. Bertman won 11 of those Regionals from 1986 through 2001 in the Box. But Garrido’s Cal State Fullerton team eliminated the Tigers with an 11-0 win in 1992 at the Box.
“That place got quiet,” Garrido said on Feb. 22, 2018, at L’Auberge Casino in Baton Rouge at a Legends of the Diamond banquet honoring Garrido and Bertman put on by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. The next night in Alex Box, LSU beat Texas 13-4 after Garrido and Bertman threw out ceremonial first pitches. The Tigers took the series two games to one.
Garrido’s Cal State Fullerton team also took the 1995 NCAA Regional at the Box. Rice coach Wayne Graham eliminated LSU and Bertman, but Rice lost to Cal State Fullerton and Garrido in the regional title game. And Garrido went on to win his third CWS that season. A year later before the 1997 season, he replaced Gustafson at Texas. Bertman was also considered for that job, but was not interested.
Garrido and Bertman were each 79 at the time of that Legends banquet. Bertman was born in 1938 – Garrido in 1939. It was one of Garrido’s last public appearances. He died less than a month later on March 15, 2018. There were 10 national championships even between them and 2,845 wins. Garrido has the most in college baseball history with 1,975. Bertman had 870.
“That was two of the greatest coaches in college baseball history at these two schools – LSU and Texas,” Johnson said.
It was Mainieri, whom Bertman hired after the 2006 season, who stopped Garrido from passing Bertman in national championships. Mainieri reached Omaha with the Tigers for the second straight year in 2009 and met Garrido and Texas for the national championship in a best-of-three series. Garrido had won three titles at Cal State Fullerton and two at Texas and had a chance to take a 6-5 lead over Bertman. But Mainieri came through to win the series two games to one for the national title.
Now, it’s LSU and Texas for the first time in the SEC.
“It’s going to be a blast,” Johnson said.
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