Georgia baseball is turning to another SEC program for its next head coach.

LSU pitching coach Wes Johnson, an assistant previously at Mississippi State and Arkansas, will take over the Bulldogs program.

The hire to replace Scott Stricklin broke soon after LSU advanced to the NCAA Super Regionals by beating Oregon State Monday afternoon.

LSU coach Jay Johnson confirmed the move he said had been done for about five days. He said Wes Johnson will stay with LSU through its tournament run.

"Wes has a proven track record of developing student-athletes while helping teams achieve impressive results," Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks said in a statement Monday night. "We aim to compete for postseason success and championships, and Wes has done that throughout his coaching career at every level, from high school to college and up to the Major Leagues. We are confident he will make Georgia Baseball one of the premier programs in the country."

Wes Johnson spent more than three seasons in Major League Baseball as the pitching coach for the Minnesota Twins before joining the Tigers last summer.

“I love him like a brother," Jay Johnson said in the postgame press conference, according to USA TODAY Sports. "I mean, I can't imagine only spending 11 months with somebody and connecting the way that we have."

He spent the 2016 season at Mississippi State when it won the SEC regular season title and the next two seasons at Arkansas including the 2018 team that finished runner-up at the College World Series before becoming the first college pitching coach to make the jump directly to the big leagues.

The 51-year old Johnson was born in Atlanta and attended Sylvan Hills High School in Sherwood, Ark. He graduated from Arkansas at Monticello in 1994. He was pitching coach at Central Arkansas in 2008, Southern Arkansas in 2009 and then again at Central Arkansas in 2010 and '11 before coaching the pitchers at Dallas Baptist from 2012-15.

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Johnson will take over a Georgia program that produced early round MLB draft-pick pitchers under Stricklin, including first-rounder Emerson Hancock, but struggled the past two seasons on the mound.

Johnson coaches LSU's projected No. 2 Baseball America draft pick Paul Skenes and two more top 80 prospects. Johnson has coached 30 pitchers who have been drafted by MLB clubs.

Johnson’s 2020 Minnesota staff set a club record with 9.38 strikeouts per nine innings and starter Kenta Maeda finished second in the Cy Young Award voting.

LSU ranks third nationally in strikeouts per nine innings at 11.7 and in hits allowed per nine innings at 7.72 and sixth in the SEC in ERA at 4.60.

His only head coaching experience was four seasons at Abundant Life High School in Sherwood, Ark., where he went 102-25 and won a state championship in 2006 and a runner-up finish in 2007. He previously was an assistant at Sylvan Hill and Arkansas Baptist High Schools.

Georgia fired Stricklin after a 29-27 season and an 11-19 SEC record, its worst since 2017. The Bulldogs reached the NCAA tournament three times under Stricklin, never advancing to the super regionals.

Keeping SEC freshman of the year Charlie Condon for 2024 should be a top priority for Johnson. The first baseman was second in the SEC with 25 home runs and fourth with a .386 average and 67 RBI.

Georgia missed out on the NCAA tournament for the second time in the past three years.

The SEC sent a record-tying 10 teams to the tournament. Georgia is one of three schools that had head coaching changes.

Missouri hired Memphis head coach Kerrick Jackson to fill its opening.

Alabama fired Brad Bohannon during the season due to a betting scandal and interim coach Jason Jackson has the Crimson Tide in the super regional round.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: LSU pitching coach Wes Johnson taking over own SEC program at Georgia