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Jay Johnson (Photo by Eddie Kelly/ ProLook Photos)
LSU didn’t wait long to put its money where its success has been.
On the heels of its second national championship in a three-year span, the school has finalized a new contract with Jay Johnson that will make him the highest-paid coach in college baseball, multiple sources confirmed to Baseball America.
Johnson’s new deal begins with a $3.05 million salary in year one, edging past Tennessee’s Tony Vitello, whose $3 million annual compensation previously set the market. They are now the only two coaches in the country earning more than $3 million annually. LSU structured Johnson’s deal to grow steadily over time, with his salary increasing by $100,000 each year until it reaches $3.65 million.
The investment reflects both recent results and long-term vision.
Johnson arrived in Baton Rouge in 2022 with a reputation as a roster-builder and recruiter. In three seasons, he has more than validated that profile, winning the 2023 and 2025 national titles and establishing LSU as the standard-bearer for modern roster construction. Johnson has become one of just 17 coaches in college baseball history to win multiple national championships, and the Tigers have done so with teams that balanced elite talent from the high school ranks, transfer portal additions and carefully identified role players.
Johnson’s resume has grown quickly. His Arizona teams reached the College World Series in 2016 and 2021, but it is at LSU where his program-building has reached a different level.
“Jay Johnson is the best coach in our sport,” one active Division I head coach told Baseball America before the start of the 2025 National Championship series. “Period.”
Johnson’s new contract is a signal to the rest of the Southeastern Conference, where coaching salaries have escalated alongside the sport’s growing visibility and financial strength.
Vitello’s $3 million deal at Tennessee, signed after the 2024 season, reset the market and underscored how much value athletic departments now place on winning in baseball. Mississippi State this offseason hired longtime Virginia head coach Brian O’Connor and will pay him $2.9 million. Texas head coach Jim Schlossnagle also clears the $2 million threshold while Auburn coach Butch Thompson received an extension and raise this offseason that will pay him a base salary of $1.5 million with accelerators that could make the deal more lucrative. Outside the SEC, UCLA extended John Savage, who reached Omaha in 2025 and has a roster with National Championship potential in 2026.
LSU, which has long treated baseball as a flagship sport, made sure Johnson wasn’t left behind.
The school also amended a pair of assistant deals as a show of support to its soaring program.
Recruiting coordinator Josh Jordan, who emerged as an early candidate to replace Chris Pollard at Duke this offseason before ultimately staying in Baton Rouge, will now earn $485,000 over the next three years. That figure represents a $175,000 bump from his previous contract and places him among the highest-paid assistants in the sport. Jordan has long been considered one of college baseball’s elite recruiters and the type of assistant who is viewed as a future head coach at a major program. LSU’s investment is designed to ensure his continued role in shaping the Tigers’ talent pipeline.
The Tigers also rewarded director of baseball operations Josh Simpson, raising his salary from $205,000 to $255,000. While not as visible as Johnson or Jordan, Simpson has become an integral part of the program’s infrastructure, handling the logistics and details that allow LSU to operate at peak efficiency.
In total, the moves highlight LSU’s commitment to not just sustaining its current run but extending it. Johnson has already shown a willingness to embrace the realities of modern college baseball—the transfer portal, NIL, accelerated recruiting calendars—and LSU has given him both the resources and the staff continuity to keep pace.
It also speaks to the SEC’s changing financial ecosystem. Once, million-dollar contracts were reserved for national championship-winning head coaches. Now, the ceiling has risen again, and assistant coaches are commanding numbers once unthinkable for non-head roles. With Johnson at $3.05 million and climbing, LSU has signaled that the market is still moving.
Johnson deservedly sits atop both the sport’s salary chart and its results column. In three seasons, he has won two national championships, secured top-ranked recruiting classes and proven himself as the kind of program architect who defines an era.
Now, LSU is paying him like it plans to have that era last.
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