As LSU looks to get back to Omaha and the College World Series, the Tigers found its new coach who was just there.

LSU has reportedly hired Arizona’s Jay Johnson as its next head coach, sources told Kendall Rogers of D1 Baseball. Johnson led Arizona to two CWS appearances in six seasons with the program. Johnson will replace Paul Mainieri, who announced his retirement this past season, and led the Tigers to a Super Regional before they lost to Tennessee. Previously, the Daily Advertiser reported that ECU’s Cliff Godwin and Notre Dame’s Link Jarrett were among the finalists.

Mainieri, who was a player at LSU in the 1970s, returned to the Tigers in 2007 and took over as head coach, and led his team to a 2009 College World Series title, along with four SEC regular-season championships.

Arizona (45-18), the No. 5 national seed, lost 7-6 to Vanderbilt in 12 innings Saturday and, after a loss to Stanford, went two games and out at the CWS for the first time in five appearances since 1985.

Entering 2021, in five seasons as the Wildcats’ head coach, Johnson had a 163-96 record, and was the first coach in school history to have led his team to the NCAA Tournament in each of his first two seasons as head coach.

He has led his Wildcat teams to at least 30 wins in all four full seasons with Arizona and in all six of his full seasons as a Division I head coach, per his Arizona bio. Since Johnson was hired by Arizona in 2016, only two other Pac-12 programs have logged 30+ wins every full season: Oregon State and Stanford. He is the only active Pac-12 head coach to have logged 30+ wins in each of his first six full seasons as a DI head coach. The program’s 163 wins are the third-most in the Pac-12 since 2016.