It may very well be one of the most remarkable turnarounds in college sports that has flown under the radar.

First, rewind to March 5, 2021.

It’s the day the Austin, Texas-based law firm Husch Blackwell, hired by LSU the previous December to investigate the school’s Title IX atrocities earmarked by a string of unchecked domestic violence and physical assaults by Tigers’ football players, as well as unwanted sexual advances by former head coach Les Miles on student workers, was revealed at a Board of Supervisors meeting.

The details of the school’s repeated failures to do the right things, whether unintentional or intentional, were sickening and embarrassing.

USA Today, whose original investigation spurred LSU to commission the law firm’s report, and just about every national media outlet buried the school under an avalanche of criticism when the report was revealed.

Compounding the problem was the NCAA’s then-three-year investigation into LSU men’s basketball and football violations (which was finally resolved last week with no post-season sanctions) and the fact the Tigers’ 2020 COVID-shortened 5-5 football season tanked so badly coming off the high of a 15-0 national championship highlighted by the play of Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Joe Burrow.

Hours after the report was outlined at the Board of Supervisors meeting and what corrective measures would be taken, LSU athletics director Scott Woodward issued a 1,001-word e-mail directed to Tigers’ fans.

“You have my unwavering commitment that our department must, and we will do better,” said Woodward, an LSU alum hired in April 2019 away from Texas A&M to replace the fired and highly-unpopular Joe Alleva.

Now, fast forward to Monday night in Omaha’s Charles Schwab Field.

For the second time in almost three months, Woodward was hugging a national championship head coach he hired in almost a four-month period after the release of the Husch Blackwell report that marked maybe the lowest point in the history of LSU athletics.

“This is a special place, it's a really special place,” LSU second-year head baseball coach Jay Johnson said Monday at his post-game press conference after the Tigers leveled fellow SEC member Florida 18-4 in the College World Series finals to win the school’s seventh national championship.”

“Scott's there in the back. I think he's the best athletic director in the country. What baseball coach's athletic director calls them two or three times a week (and asks) `Everything good?’”

Johnson also received a postgame hug from LSU women’s head basketball coach Kim Mulkey, who wore a gold LSU No. 3 jersey in tribute to Tigers’ star Dylan Crews as well as her son Kramer Robertson who wore the number in helping the Tigers to the 2017 CWS finals where they lost to Florida in two games.

Mulkey, a Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame coach who won three national titles in 21 seasons at Baylor, was hired by Woodward in April 2021 almost three months to the day earlier than he hired Johnson away from the University of Arizona. This year in her second season at LSU, she guided her team to the national championship with a 102-85 win over Iowa.

“I want you to look up there on those stairs right there,” said south Louisiana native Mulkey at her post-game press conference after winning the school’s first national basketball title men’s or women’s. “There's my AD. There's my president (Dr. William Tate). There's my administration. That's who I get to work for every day. That's who I get to work for. They don't try to control you. They make you follow the rules. . .and they don't miss a thing when it comes to helping me build a program.

“Scott Woodward is my kind of leader. We talk the same language. I don't know if that's a Louisiana thing. He's from Baton Rouge. I'm from Hammond. But he just, he gets it. He gets it. He gets out of the way.

“He doesn't have to be and doesn't want to be the most important person in the athletic department. He wouldn't even go out there tonight and cut the net down.”

Four months after Woodward hired Johnson, he stunned the college football world in late November 2021 by luring Brian Kelly away from Notre Dame to become the Tigers’ head football coach.

All Kelly did in his first season last year was deliver a 10-4 record and a Western Division title and a spot in the SEC championship game. LSU enjoyed a 62-7 Citrus Bowl beatdown of Purdue and reveled after a 32-31 overtime win over Alabama in Kelly’s first shot at UA’s Nick Saban the Tigers had lost 10 of 11 previous times to the Crimson Tide.

How in the world did Woodward pry Mulkey away from Baylor and Kelly away from Notre Dame, traditionally strong in their respective sports?

“You just call and ask to see if they are interested,” Woodward explained after hiring Kelly. “All they can say is `no.’”

But they didn’t because Woodward did his homework and reached out with impeccable timing.

He knew Mulkey might be open to coming home. She had unsuccessfully battled her athletic director at Baylor for better facilities and more resources. And Woodward told her he needed her at LSU as more than just a coach, but also as positive leader returning to her home state.

Woodward also knew Kelly, who had been at Notre Dame for 10 seasons and a college head coach for 31 seasons, wanted to coach at a place where he had unlimited resources, topped by one of the best in-state recruiting bases, to win a national championship.

Johnson, who had coached Arizona for six seasons, grew up in California as an LSU fan of Skip Bertman and his five CWS championship teams.

“I sat in front of them and wanted this worse than anything else in the world,” said Johnson of his job interview with LSU administrators when the school was seeking a replacement for the retired Paul Mainieri. “I believed that I could do it (win a national championship) that I could do it with this group (of players).”

The common denominator of Johnson, Mulkey and Kelly is they know how to build and maintain programs that can annually challenge for national championships. They recruit uber-talented, high-character human beings, improve them as athletes and people and get them to accept roles and love each other.

Also, you won’t find a trio of head coaches who have adapted better to the rapidly-changing world of college athletics.

Taking advantage of LSU catching up quickly in the NIL race where athletes can now earn money through their name, image and likeness, the coaching firm of Johnson, Mulkey and Kelly have killed it in recruiting using the NCAA’s loosened transfer portal rules.

Four of Mulkey’s five starters on this year’s national championship team, led by All-American first-team forward Angel Reese, were transfers.

LSU starting quarterback Jayden Daniels and All-SEC first-team defensive tackle Mehki Wingo were one of many transfers in Kelly’s first recruiting class who are returning in the upcoming season.

After Johnson’s first season a year ago ended with a shorthanded LSU team losing to Southern Miss in the Hattiesburg Regional, he targeted Air Force junior pitcher Paul Skenes, North Carolina State sophomore third baseman/designated hitter Tommy White and UCLA sophomore pitcher Thatcher Hurd as his primary transfer portal targets.

“I think back to the week the College World Series started last year,” Johnson said. “I flew to Colorado Springs and met with Paul. I flew from there to California and met with Thatcher. I flew to Tampa and met with Tommy the next week. And then we got them on board.”

Thankfully.

Skenes went 13-2 this season with a 1.69 ERA, led the nation with a SEC and LSU record 209 strikeouts and was named the CWS MVP after starting and winning two games and allowing just two runs.

White hit .374 with 24 homers, 24 doubles and a college-baseball leading 105 RBIs. His walk-off two-run homer in an 11-inning 2-0 win over top-seed Wake Forest propelled the Tigers into the finals series vs. Florida.

Hurd, who finished the season 8-3 after some early season struggles, was LSU’s unsung CWS hero. With the Tigers needing a pitcher to step up, Hurd combined two relief appearances vs. Wake Forest and Monday’s start vs. the Gators into 12 innings and 212 pitches. He went 2-1, allowed just three earned runs and six hits, struck out 21 and walked.

While Mulkey and Kelly performed massive roster flips, Johnson deftly took a roster with a solid foundation of position talent recruited by Mainieri (seven of LSU’s starters Monday night plus backup catcher Hayden Travinski are Mainieri recruits), sprinkled in two top-ranked recruiting classes and prepared his team consistently game in-and-game out.

“This guy (Johnson) just loves baseball so much,” said LSU grad student Cade Beloso, who missed the entire 2021 season after knee surgery and returned this year to produce career-bests of .324 at the plate with 16 homers. “There's not a person in the room that cares more about LSU, cares more about the game of baseball, more about people than this guy sitting to the right of me.

“This program is so lucky to have Coach Jay Johnson. They'll have to build a new intimidator for what he's about to do. He's not stopping, I promise that.”

One last thing about Johnson, Mulkey and Kelly. They know how to put the icing on the cake.

Johnson’s team scored a College World Series championship game runs total vs. Florida.

Mulkey’s squad produced a women’s Final Four record points output vs. Iowa.

Kelly’s crew exploded for the third-most points ever in a bowl game in January’s Citrus Bowl thrashing of Purdue.

Now, there are 69 days until the LSU football 2023 season opener on Sept. 3 vs. Florida State in Orlando.

Until then, beware of the summer heat and stay hydrated.

That means drinking plenty of water. No, Jell-O shots DO NOT count.