Swagger is back at LSU

LSU was the gold standard program in college baseball under Skip Bertman, winning five national championships in a 10-year span in the 1990s.

The Tigers lost their way for a while, but are back on top of the mountain after beating Texas 11-4 on Wednesday night in Omaha, Neb., winning the best-of-three College World Series finale over Texas, which came into the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 seed.

Bertman, now LSU's AD, hired Paul Mainieri as coach three years ago from Notre Dame.

"He has what I refer to as 'magic dust,' gut," Bertman told the New Orleans Times-Picayune before the CWS, about Mainieri. "His gut feelings, or instincts, are terrific. The great ones have that. The good ones practice hard and do all the other things, but you got to have that gut.

"This is what I mean: He plays player X, he responds. The next day he sees the wind blowing a certain way and plays player Y instead of X and player Y responds. Paul has that magic dust."

Jared Mitchell, who won a football national championship as a wide receiver in 2007 and was a first-round pick of the White Sox two weeks ago, hit a three-run homer in the first inning that set the tone. He was named the Most Outstanding Player of the CWS, hitting .348 with two homers and seven RBI.

LSU and Texas have now won six NCAA titles each, which is second all-time behind Southern Cal, which has 12 (but only one in the past 31 years). LSU, the No. 3 overall seed heading into the tournament, is the first national seed (top eight) to win the CWS since 2003.