But going back to your CWS Champions and runners-up point earlier. I don't think it's a coincidence teams have struggled the following season at this point. It's happened enough to be a trend. And makes sense. Teams can't be that good without having really good, draft-eligible players. And after winning the CWS--or even playing in the Finals--a lot will go ahead and start their professional careers when maybe, with a lesser season, would have come back. Sure, everybody dreamed of winning the CWS if they were college baseball fans growing up.

But a lot too, just wanted to play in Omaha. You can't do better than winning it, so those guys who reached the pinnacle of the sport and won NCs are likely to leave if they have the opportunity (still shocked Little and Coleman came back after winning and where they were drafted--I wasn't sure there would be enough innings for them on what appeared to be a very deep staff. Little found some innings, and despite his subpar outing last night probably made the right call. I'm not even sure Coleman still exists, and if he can't get innings on this staff, well I bet he wishes he would have gone ahead and signed).

But a lot of the guys who lost in the Finals are probably going to lean towards leaving too, realizing just how hard it was to get there and unlikelihood of doing it again. Also, besides good players leaving to start their professional baseball careers (or regular careers if they're out of eligibility), good assistant coaches will leave as well. It's pretty obvious by now that Wes Johnson is a really good baseball coach, not just a pitching coach--he's having a great 1st season at Georgia--and we clearly downgraded at pitching coach with Yeskie. I'm not on the "Yeskie sucks, Jay should shite-can him before we leave Tuscaloosa" train--I don't think most of have enough information to determine how good or bad he is. But I think we have enough to conclude he's not as good as Wes, as a pitching coach or just baseball coach in general. Jay clearly misses a lot of what he brought to the table.

Finally, I think it's also starting to become clear that making a deep run in Omaha puts you a little behind the 8-ball in regards to portal recruiting. Teams that get sent home from a Super, a regional, or who don't even make the tourney have a crucial 3-4 week head start on you with regards to scouting/evaluating and building relationships. I know Jay doesn't sleep and is all baseball 24/7, but even he couldn't keep up while trying to focus on winning in Omaha. That's the whole goal of recruiting, right?
To get the players you need to make it to Omaha and win it?

There's no way he was going to sacrifice as much time with last year's team, with the NC so within reach, as it would have taken to not fall behind in portal recruiting. Part of why he took Braswell so early. Didn't know if he'd have the time to find anybody better and knew he had to have a SS. Even if guys hadn't committed/signed by the time he got back to Baton Rouge, those relationships had already been fostered and proved too hard to overcome. I mean, if we made a deep Omaha run in '22, do we come away with Skenes and White and Hurd for '23?

I do think Jay made some mistakes this year (but I won't take up any more bandwidth right now delving into that). But he's still young and learning. He's never been the defending NC before. Probably some things he'd do differently. All coaches are still trying to navigate the new landscape of portal transfers and NIL. I don't know if he's the absolute "best" coach in college baseball, but I'm pretty sure he's up there. And just having seen him work the past 3 years, I don't think there's anybody I'd trust more to learn and adapt--and do it more quickly--than Jay.