Ten months ago. If you were to tell an LSU fan that they would be sitting here in the middle of April after winning their first National Championship since 2009, they would think that you had too much to drink in Tigerland.

But here we are, it's April 2024, and the defending national champions are sitting at 21-10, probably out of the Top 25 after this week, and 3-7 in SEC play. Since starting off 16-2, and going into SEC play, the Tigers are 5-8 during that stretch, and have lost every single series so far.

Did I mention that they still haven’t played Tennessee and Alabama this year? This year has been a disaster, yes I know that it is hard to replace the #1 and #2 pick in the MLB Draft, and six hitters that were in your lineup last year, but this is supposed to be a reloaded LSU team that looked like they were going to maintain the level of expectations that everyone in the national media expected of them going into this year.

Now it looks like LSU won’t even host a regional this year, maybe going to Lincoln as the #2 according to D1Baseball’s Midseason Field of 64, and Baseball America has them in an even worse position going to Stillwater as the #3 seeds in their region. So things need to change, and it looks like Jay Johnson is doing that right now, on his radio show, he implemented a no-phone policy in the clubhouse or anywhere around Alex Box Stadium.

“(Phones aren’t) going to make anybody a better player, and it's not going to make us a better team.”‍

He is absolutely correct, the cell phone is getting out of hand in the locker room, you have guys liking Tweets, going on Instagram live, going on Snapchat and posting on their story before a game, it goes to show you that the game isn’t what matters most to these dudes. It’s all about the likes and getting your brand out there.

There’s also a problem with these guys going out to Tigerland late at night, knowing they got practice early in the morning. They don’t care if they won or lost, they’re still going out and partying. They don’t care. They act like this is a long season and a national championship comes easy to them. The 90s era of LSU baseball would never have to deal with this, mostly because they didn’t have any access to the internet, but the game mattered to them, the game was important, winning a College World Series was important.

They weren’t worried about the outside media or what others said about them, Skip Bertman wouldn’t allow it. Jay Johnson is making a Skip Bertman move, and it's one that has been long overdue. So here’s my message to LSU Baseball: Get off your phone, get out of Tigerland, grow up, and think about what is most important right now, just because y’all were champs a year ago, doesn’t mean the title goes back to y’all.

Lose this series this weekend, and watch the fanbase turn on you. Watch how long of a season this will be for you, and when June comes and your season ends in the Regionals (if you even make it there), you’d better hit the portal as soon as the plane lands back in Baton Rouge because you don’t wanna look into the eyes of these fans.