LSU announced Thursday that its spring football practice will begin on March 24, a leak that at most places in the South would shove all other headlines to the back porch.

But at LSU, where football is as important as anywhere, tonight is the opening of baseball season.

Worrying about football practice will come in due time.

Baseball matters at Alex Box Stadium, where full crowds will return after last season’s socially distanced inconveniences. It’s kind of a big deal.

Presumably first-year coach Jay Johnson understands all of this.

That’s why he left a perfectly good baseball tradition with an Arizona team that reached the College World Series last year.

He need not tell his new fans that the CWS is in Omaha. For all those tailgaters he’ll wade through for tonight’s game with Maine, that’s the minimum requirement for a successful season — never mind the Tigers have not been there since reaching the finals in 2017, It’s an unusually long drought for this fan base, which still gripes about not winning it all that year.

Johnson, who claims to have long followed his new program from afar, probably realizes it’s not as easy to get there as LSU used to make it look. But it doesn’t lessen the expectations.

Just ask former head coach Paul Mainieri. He will be on hand to throw out tonight’s ceremonial first pitch, and can tell you all about it.

He survived the lofty demands even though he probably worried more about what the fans said and thought than he should have.

But something gave him a pain in the neck that led to his retirement.

Last year was a down year by the Tigers’ standards, 38-25. They had to sneak into the NCAA Tournament, yet still reached the super regionals where they lost to Tennessee.

It wasn’t seen as particularly satisfying.

Let us assume that Johnson has been properly briefed about these demands and knows what he’s getting into.

On the positive side, LSU looks like a locked and loaded and veteran team.

Johnson was able to put together the nation’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class — and yet it’s hard to see where any freshmen are going to crack the everyday lineup.

College baseball, particularly at LSU’s level, has always been played with the assumption that you only get three years out of your decent players.

Now, between the shortened pro draft and the NCAA’s extra year of eligibility in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, one wonders if any of them will ever leave college.

I’d swear that Ma’Khail Hilliard, who will pitch Saturday’s second game, was there at home plate for the Warren Morris home run in 1996. Same thing for Devin Fontenot, who might try to make the transition from bullpen closer to weekend starter.

Oh, there will be newcomers. Johnson brought along Jacob Berry from Arizona, who’ll play either third base or outfield.

That gives LSU two returning National Freshmen of the Year — Berry was Collegiate Baseball’s choice; outfielder Dylan Crews, Perfect Game’s choice, was already in Baton Rouge.

Throw in first baseman Tré Morgan and it gives the Tigers three players from the Golden Spikes award preseason watch list, the most of any school.

The D1 Baseball website, the college game’s bible, lists all three as first-team preseason all-Americans.

That wouldn’t include left fielder Gavin Dugas, who led the Southeastern Conference in RBIs last season.

Sounds great, right? Johnson is inheriting a powerhouse, especially on offense.

The catch?

For all that, it’s only good enough to get LSU ranked fourth in one division of the SEC, the West as it were. That would be behind defending national champion Mississippi State, Arkansas and Ole Miss.

Johnson should pay it no mind. It doesn’t change things.

LSU fans expect to win the SEC, the SEC Tournament, host an NCAA regional and a super regional, and the fans have already made reservations for Omaha.

You can’t do all of that on opening night, of course.

But you have to start somewhere.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com