BATON ROUGE - Jay Johnson and the LSU Tigers may have missed their chance at repeating as national champions by missing the College World Series, but Coach Johnson has many coaching friends in Omaha that he wishes well.

"You know, when you do this...and I'm not talking about right now or this season. Like, I'm talking about sitting at the area code games 19 years ago with Scott Forbes (UNC), Erik Bakich (Clemson), Mark Wasikowski (Oregon), Nick Mingione (Kentucky) is one of my two or three best friends in the world. Like, it was almost more of an interest of like, wow, how's this weekend going for them? You know, I mean, it's pretty clear, I guess who the two best conferences in the country are. I said something mid season. A lot of people thought I fell down and hit my head that we will win any other league in America and I was wrong, but I was only wrong by two outs," Johnson said.

Scott Forbes (North Carolina) and Nick Mingione (Kentucky) both have their teams in the College World Series that is made up of teams only from the SEC and ACC.

The ACC dominant side of the bracket began Friday with Virginia and North Carolina where the Tar Heels walked it off 3-2 in the ninth inning.

Tennessee is the lone SEC team in the first bracket, and NC State is the lone ACC team in bracket two. 

The SEC side of the bracket begins Saturday with NC State and Kentucky at 1 p.m., followed by Florida and Texas A&M at 6 p.m.