The LSU baseball team turned into a juggernaut in 2025, but that’s not to say it was always destined to win a championship. Those are earned, often painstakingly.

Still, there were signs for coach Jay Johnson early on that he had a team that could win it all. It all had to do with how his guys bounced back from early adversity.

“I think there was a few things that stuck out to me,” Johnson said on the Mik’d Up With Mikie Mahtook podcast. “No. 1 after we lost our first game to Omaha — and we played pretty dominant through like the first five games — and then we lost a game maybe we shouldn’t have, weird day with the wind blowing in and that sort of deal, and we actually had to play a double-header right after that.

“And I kind of challenged them like, ‘Hey, a lot of times you know what you have right after you lose your first game of the season and how you respond to that.’ Well we went out and won 12-1, played great. Then after that we won 17 games in a row.”

Take one look at LSU’s season schedule and you can see the streakiness. A loss here and there, sprinkled in amongst some huge winning streaks.

“That streak I think got broke at Texas and we lost two in a row, they beat us in the series,” Johnnson recalled. “Which was a very beneficial series for us. I learned a lot about what we needed to do from there, from that series. And then we won like nine in a row right after that. Mississippi State, playing late at night, all those types of things.

“Then you look up and we’ve won 26 of 28 against a pretty good schedule, like, man, there’s something to this. Then we got swept in three tough games at Auburn. They didn’t blow us out, but they beat us. Then we responded well to that.”

Eventually, LSU piled up enough wins that it put itself in a favorable position to do some serious damage in the postseason. The team earned a No. 6 seed nationally, giving it the right to host through the Super Regionals if it kept winning.

That proved tricky. Arkansas-Little Rock pushed LSU to a winner-take-all game in the Baton Rouge Regional.

You can probably guess at this point how the Tigers responded. With aplomb, naturally.

“Every time they got challenged, like we got off the mat quickly and didn’t really spiral or those types of things,” Johnson said. “So it was like that consistency is kind of the hallmark that I’m really proud of. Because you just, you’re going to get bloodied in this thing. It’s baseball No. 1, it’s the SEC No. 2. Nobody’s getting through it perfectly, but I thought they did about as good a job as you could to responding to adversity. And there was no complacency ever.

“I felt like they had this quality of like, and I say this to them, but it’s really hard to get to this, it’s like we’re not validated by our record or what anybody says about us, but like can we do this college baseball program thing as good as it possibly could be done? In every facet of it. I thought they were really bought into that and I think it showed in their ability to be consistent.”

President Donald Trump inserted himself into the chaos of college athletics and NIL. He signed an executive order that banned third-party payments to athletes without “fair-market” contracts. Legendary broadcaster Tim Brando has already praised the new executive order, but now also from arguably college football’s greatest coach, Nick Saban, who has been desperate for this sort of reform for a long time.

It’s not surprising to see Saban support this new executive order from the President, as he’s been one of the strongest advocates of keeping the educational aspect of college athletics as the primary focus.

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The Pitch That Wins: “Get Paid Now, Get Rich Later”

In the high-stakes world of college athletics, the University of Georgia is selling more than just a scholarship. Its pitch: “Get paid now, get rich later.” Behind the slogan lies a deliberate, long-game NIL strategy that blends smart financial allocation, culture-driven recruiting and athlete branding infrastructure.

In June 2025, Georgia Athletics teamed with Learfield Impact to launch an independent, full-service NIL agency, integrated with Georgia Bulldogs Sports Marketing. The partnership provides UGA athletes with an elite toolkit for building brands, securing endorsements, and accessing long-term income—all while remaining aligned with University systems and collective oversight.

This move builds on the Classic City Collective, a pioneering organization that helped define the University of Georgia’s NIL ecosystem. Georgia chose to keep its own collective active—unlike many peer institutions that are winding theirs down—signaling an intentional focus on “above-the-cap” compensation via legitimate marketing and licensing deals beyond the NCAA’s standard revenue-share cap of $20.5 million per year.

Head coach Kirby Smart has made Georgia’s NIL philosophy uncompromisingly clear: pay what athletes are worth—but don’t overpay, especially for early-career players. He emphasizes relationships over transactions, favoring loyalty and program fit above big short-term payouts.

Inside fan forums, supporters describe UGA’s NIL approach as consistently investing in players already in the program, rather than splurging on portal or transfer athletes or “mercenaries.” One standard analysis: “While other teams are blowing much of their NIL by signing mercenaries off the Portal, UGA is spending to keep the guys they’ve invested in via development.” That strategy aligns with the revenue-sharing cap environment: rather than maxing out a few megadeals, Georgia spreads its NIL dollars across multiple athletes, reinforcing depth, culture, and long-term value.

Georgia understands that player turnover is costly.

Recent NIL resources have been invested in retaining stars who might otherwise leave via the transfer portal. For example, when rumors swirled about player departures, UGA reportedly provided incentives to keep key contributors on the roster. That approach preserves continuity, fosters trust, and builds a team identity, contrasting with programs that chase immediate success by purchasing experienced portal talent.

During SEC Media Days, Smart acknowledged Georgia occasionally loses out on recruits due to smaller NIL packages. One high-profile case: five-star in-state defensive lineman Justus Terry chose Texas over Georgia, citing a bigger NIL offer. Yet Smart sees this as evidence—not weakness—that Georgia’s emphasis on development and suit-fit trumps transactional offers.

Despite such losses, Georgia has signed four straight top-4 recruiting classes, including the No. 1 class in 2024 and No. 2 in 2025, and leads the chase for 2026. That track record suggests the message—relationships over transactions—resonates with players of character who see UGA as a path to pro success beyond immediate NIL dollars.

With new NCAA regulations capping revenue-share at $20.5 million and banning overly big NIL contracts that resemble pay-for-play (contracts above $600 trigger scrutiny), many schools are winding down their collectives. However, Georgia is bucking that trend, doubling down on above-cap deals through brand licensure and sponsorship, rather than performance-based payouts.

On July 24, 2025, a federal executive order was signed banning third-party, booster-sourced NIL payments used as recruiting inducements, while allowing fair-market endorsement deals. That national guardrail underscores why Georgia’s carefully structured model, rooted in transparency and legitimate marketing, may be more resilient moving forward.

This multi-layered strategy serves several goals: Athlete brand building via professional marketing support. Draft prep and exposure, making players pro-ready with strong off-field platforms. Roster stability, via investments in loyalty. Competitive depth is achieved by deploying NIL across multiple players, rather than relying on a few stars. Institutional alignment, giving Georgia complete oversight and brand integration, not leaving NIL to boosters or third parties.

The payoff is both on-field dominance—back-to-back national titles—and off-field value, as Bulldogs build long-term partnerships that outlast eligibility.

Georgia’s pitch is clear: if you buy into the culture and development model—if you stay loyal and work off and on the field—today’s NIL earnings are just the start. Tomorrow brings bigger returns: professional contracts, long-term endorsement deals, and life after UGA success.

In this context, “Get Paid Now” means athletes are compensated in market-value deals early in their careers. But “Get Rich Later” reflects Georgia’s belief that successful development, exposure, national championships, and personal branding ultimately deliver far more than one-time megadeals.

UGA’s NIL strategy is not about knee-jerk, big-money deals. It is a purposeful, multi-layered plan blending institutional infrastructure, athlete support, cultural alignment, recruitment messaging, and brand partnerships. They’re selling something bigger than endorsement checks—a sustainable blueprint for success: win today, build tomorrow.

Georgia’s pitch wins by offering athletes a clear path: earn immediate NIL, but invest in development, identity, and loyalty, and you’ll “get rich later.”

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