LSU lands commitment from all-conference ace via transfer portal

Jay Johnson and his LSU coaching staff is doing work in the transfer portal as the Tigers look ahead to 2025.

On Wednesday, an all-conference ace committed to continue his career at LSU. Zac Cowan is headed to Baton Rouge after two seasons at Wofford.

Portal Update: As @tedcahill first reported, LSU has landed a commitment from Wofford pitcher Zac Cowan.

Camden Wicker remains uncommitted. Only one Wofford transfer today.

— Matt Moscona (@MattMoscona) June 12, 2024

A right-hander, Cowan is listed at 5-11, 180 pounds on the Wofford roster. He has a 4.35 career ERA, seeing the number drop from 6.75 as a freshman to 3.35 in 2024.

Cowan was primarily a reliever in 2023. He made 15 appearances, starting once, recording 2 saves over 45.1 innings.

This past season, Cowman moved into a starting role and picked up All-SoCon honors. He logged 110 innings over 17 appearances, all starts. Cowan saw his opponents’ batting average drop from .305 to .242. He allowed 102 hits on the season while posting a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 124-29.

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Cowan’s batters faced more than double from 2023 to ’24 (195 to 465), but his home runs allowed dropped from 11 to 8 and his earned runs only increased from 34 to 41.

LSU’s staff is already familiar with Cowan, having scouted Wofford’s pitching staff for the Chapel Hill Regional. Ahead of regional action, Johnson spoke highly of Cowan.

“(He’s) a converted position player who’s a really good athlete. (He) has great feel for what he’s doing. It’s a really good delivery, so everything comes out kind of looking the same. And his athleticism helps him with that.” Johnson said, per NOLA.com. “He has an elite changeup, a real changeup. He kind of throws it where he wants, has a bunch of movement on it.

“(He) has enough on the fastball to be able to mix well and he just he throws it where he wants to. When he wants to throw it in the zone, he throws it in the zone. When he wants to throw it out of the zone, he can make it look like it’s in the zone and throw it out of the zone. He’s a really good pitcher.”

Cowan did not pitch against LSU, but the staff’s familiarity with his work may have helped make him a Tiger.

Andrew Olson

Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.