In all honesty, I think Johnson misjudged the SEC level of difficulty this season.
We came into conference play as a Top 5 team, I think still #2 or so. He was still fricking around with the lineup and pitching rotations, seeing what could work, instead of going all-in to win games and series. 1-2 on the road against a better State team than expected, 1-2 at home against a motivated and dangerous Florida team. Pretty competitive but still swept at Arkansas, suddenly you're 2-7 and shell-shocked. Messed around with Vandy and lost the series 1-2 at home, another competitive effort but swept at Tennessee-
3-12 and left for dead.

LSU simply does not have the pitching depth to sweep a series, Game 3 will be a loss. The mistake was not committing all arms to game 2 in the Florida and Vandy series- LSU led both going into the 8th. Lost both, as they tried to hold arms for game 3; got run-ruled in game 3 both times anyway. We couldn't even sweep Auburn at home, lost game 3 by 2 but it was wire to wire for them, LSU never led.

A&M seems to have shown a change of strategy- we used our best to close game 2 out, and WON it. Got run-ruled in game 3, but took the series.

LSU can win games 1 and 2 against pretty much anyone, sweeps vs Arky and Tennessee aside (those were 7-4 and 4-3, 6-3 and 3-1 games). It can NOT win game 3. If they had approached the entire conference season with this understanding, I think LSU is sitting at 11-13 conference wins, ranked in the upper teens, still on track to maybe host one of the last regionals. We'd have won at least 2 more series.

In other words, we'd be having the season Miss State is having.