Michael Lev: As Jay Johnson vies for NCAA crown with LSU, his departure from Arizona still stings

Best I could tell, most Arizona baseball fans had two rooting interests in the past two NCAA Tournaments:

1. For the Wildcats to advance as far as possible.

2. For Jay Johnson and LSU to stumble, sputter and suffer.

And not necessarily in that order.

Arizona did not author a satisfying finish in either tournament, failing to advance out of regional play.

LSU, under the direction of the Wildcats’ former coach, didn’t go any further last year. The Tigers reached the championship game of the Hattiesburg Regional and lost.

“When I say painful, this is deep pain,” Johnson said that night. “I know it means you’re living a pretty good life if losing a baseball game hurts that bad, but it really does.”

UA fans felt no pity. They still felt spurned and burned.

Fast-forward a year. On an electric Thursday night in Omaha, LSU knocked off No. 1. The Tigers walked off Wake Forest. They’re headed to the College World Series finals to face Florida, starting Saturday.

Johnson beamed with pride afterward as he met with the media. He was joined by three star players LSU acquired via the transfer portal: Paul Skenes, who routinely throws 100 mph and could be the first pick in next month’s MLB Draft; Tommy White, who hit the winning home run and will be a first-rounder in next year’s draft; and Thatcher Hurd, who threw three innings of one-hit relief behind Skenes.

If you’re an Arizona fan and watched that news conference, you had to be thinking: That could’ve been us. Plus some words we can’t print here.

I don’t blame you. Losing Johnson on the heels of a second trip to Omaha — or in the midst of one? — was its own form of deep pain. Losing him to an SEC school made it even worse.

I also don’t harbor any resentment toward Johnson. College sports is big business, and he made a business decision. Would you turn down the chance to perform on a bigger stage for bigger money?

The timing of the move still rankles many. Again, I get it.

Given that Arizona was eliminated from the 2021 CWS on June 21 — and Johnson became LSU’s coach on June 25 — he had to have had contact with the Tigers before the Wildcats’ season ended. You’re naïve if you think that sort of thing doesn’t happen all the time.

Still, it’s not a good look — especially if you subscribe to the theory that Johnson wasn’t fully focused on Arizona during that time. It’s impossible to prove whether that’s the case. Maybe the Wildcats’ lackluster 14-5 loss to Stanford to end the season is all the evidence you need.

Aside from his first fall ball, I covered the entirety of Johnson’s tenure in Tucson. I got to know him fairly well. I’ve never met a more driven, devoted coach. The man is obsessed with winning. In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic ending the 2020 season, Johnson rewatched every game the Wildcats played that year and analyzed the at-bats of players he expected to return. It was his way of coping.

Johnson is exactly the kind of coach you want running your program. Which is probably why it hurt so much when he bolted.

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Johnson spent about 2,200 days as a UA employee. For the sake of argument, let’s say he was distracted by LSU’s bags of money and Baton Rouge’s scrumptious Cajun cuisine for two of them. Pouring every ounce of energy into your job for 2,198 of 2,200 days doesn’t make you derelict of duty. It makes you exceptional.

I know that isn’t what you want to hear, though. How do I know?

When current Arizona football coach Jedd Fisch tweeted a congratulatory message to Johnson on Thursday night, the replies were, well, not kind. Some examples:

@ArizonaBearDown: “Treating Arizona (4x natties, 8x CWS Finals, 18x College World Series) as a steppingstone when they gave him an opportunity from Nevada and leaving the way he did is not something that sits well with Arizona fans. Love you, coach, but this ain’t it.”

@Azcatfanforlife: “Delete this. Jay Johnson is a snake in the grass.”

It’s as if those two days when Johnson might not have been completely engaged trump the two times he took Arizona to Omaha. It’s because he did something no one had done in the long, proud history of UA baseball:

He left for another job.

That’s not how it’s supposed to work around here, right?

Only four programs have won more CWS championships than Arizona’s four: USC (12), LSU (six), Texas (six) and ASU (five). Only three (USC, Texas and ASU) have made more appearances in the finals.

All of the Tigers’ titles have come since 1991. They averaged an NCAA-leading 11,188 fans per home game this season. They have “resources” galore. They’re the best program going.

Combine all those factors with Johnson’s relentless, ruthless recruiting, and the result is a juggernaut. This won’t be LSU’s last appearance in the CWS championship round during his time there.

He isn’t going away. Neither is the bitterness.

You shouldn’t have to live that way, friends. But there might be only one cure for the deep pain:

Knocking Johnson’s Tigers out of the tournament.

When he was here, Arizona swept Mississippi State in Starkville and ousted Ole Miss at Hi Corbett Field. There’s no better feeling than beating an SEC team.

Well, maybe beating an SEC team coached by the guy who dumped you.