LSU baseball: Where the Tigers stand ahead of the season

LSU baseball has undergone a lot of changes between last season and this season.

Obviously, the most notable of those is a head coach change after the retirement of Paul Mainieri. Enter new head coach Jay Johnson, formerly of Arizona.

Regardless of how different things make look this year, one thing remains — high expectations for the program in Baton Rouge.

Baseball America recently released its ‘Never Too Early’ rankings for college baseball teams across the country, and LSU sat at No. 10 on the list, behind Texas, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Mississippi State, Stanford, Virginia, Florida, Notre Dame and Ole Miss.

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Here’s a look at the Top 10 in order:

Behind the Tigers, in order, were Florida State, North Carolina State, Oregon State, Arizona, East Carolina, UC Irvine, Texas Tech, Nebraska, Tennessee Texas Christian, Georgia, UCLA, Georgia Tech, Charlotte and Oklahoma State.

The Tigers are in good hands with Johnson, and it will be interesting to see how they finish out in comparison to these preseason rankings.

Johnson comes to LSU fresh off his second College World Series trip with Arizona. He and the Wildcats were just one win away from a National Championship in 2016, so it’s clear he has a winning foundation to grow.

He built one of the best teams offensively in college baseball, leading Arizona to its first conference title since 1992.

List

Where LSU is predicted to finish in the 2021 SEC West standings