No one has had a better view to witness the Oklahoma Sooners' unbelievable run to the Men's College World Series than head coach Skip Johnson from the dugout.
The Sooners will head to Omaha for the MCWS for the second time under Johnson, who also led OU on another improbable run to the championship series in 2022, after sweeping No. 15 national seed Kansas in the Lawrence Super Regional on Monday. It's a ticket no one in college baseball expected the Sooners to punch after entering the NCAA Baseball Championship just a few weeks ago at one of their lowest points of the season.
Oklahoma going to Men's College World Series after upset run through NCAA Tournament
"Our job as coaches is to get those guys through excuses and try to teach to them to be selfless," Johnson said during his postgame press conference. "Where does it go from here? I don't know. But I can tell you this, we'll go up there and fight and claw and do the things. We went through a lot of adversity all year long and they fought through it and they never wavered, and kept battling and kept battling and kept battling.
"And that's the great thing about baseball. I still say it's the best game in the world because you can be on a low, then you can be on a high. And that's really good."
Here’s #Sooners coach Skip Johnson following Oklahoma’s Super Regional sweep of Kansas. pic.twitter.com/ha9kSbU6Po
— Colton Sulley (@colton_sulley) June 8, 2026
There was a time in the second half of the season that the Sooners were fighting to host their own regional in Norman. But the SEC, which just sent five of eight teams to Omaha, did OU dirty with four straight series losses to end the regular season. LSU also bounced the Sooners in the first round of the SEC Tournament.
The Sooners entered the NCAA Tournament at 32-21 and had went 3-7 in their last 10 games. They were sent to the Atlanta Regional, hosted by No. 2 national seed Georgia Tech, which was coming of an ACC Tournament title. There weren't just excuses, but reasons for the Sooners' season to end right there in Atlanta.
But then, with the Sooners nearing rock bottom, baseball happened.
OU was thumped by Georgia Tech the first time they met in Atlanta, but then strung together a pair of massive comebacks in back-to-back days that were headlined by Dayton Tockey's walk-off home run to get the Sooners to Super Regionals in Lawrence. The Sooners then absolutely hammered Big 12 champion Kansas 21-3 between two games in Super Regionals to go to the MCWS as possibly the hottest team in the country.
Read more: Oklahoma stuns college baseball world with upset run to Men’s College World Series
The Sooners, all of a sudden, went from their lowest low to their highest high.
Johnson was honest that he really has no idea what the future holds for his team in Omaha. And in his defense, no one does. The Sooners weren't even supposed to still be playing baseball. But, like Johnson said, that's baseball.
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