In some ways, this is the kind of weekend that lured a West Coaster like Jay Johnson from the Arizona desert to the bayous of Louisiana.

The real allure was the opportunity to coach in the Southeastern Conference.

And you can’t spell SEC baseball without …

“The SEC was built, I think, on LSU and Mississippi State,” Johnson said.

He was paying attention when Ron Polk was seemingly the first to take the sport seriously at Mississippi State. He seriously perked up when Skip Bertman took it to another level with LSU and five national championships in the 1990s.

He’s heard the tales from Bertman about the storied rivalry between the teams and the great games that came from it.

So now, it turns out, even the expanded SEC, Mississippi State will be one of LSU’s two permanent opponents. Texas A&M is the other.

“So we’ll see them every year,” Johnson said.

Both have ground to make up when LSU (23-3, 4-2 SEC) and Mississippi State (16-9, 1-5) open their series tonight.

Heading into the weekend there’s a four-way tie for first place in the SEC at 5-1, with the Tigers part of a six-team jam a game back.

And Johnson doesn’t trust Mississippi State’s 1-5 conference record.

“I think they’re very talented,” he said of the Bulldogs. “I think the top of the lineup is very good.”

The Tigers, who lost consecutive games for the first time this season to close out last weekend at Texas, bounced back Tuesday with a 17-4 seven-inning victory over Louisiana-Lafayette. It was the seventh LSU win by the 10-run mercy rule.

But runs figure to be more of a premium this weekend.

The series opener should feature one of the season’s best SEC pitching matchups with a pair of lefthanders, LSU’s Kade Anderson (5-0, 2.65 ERA) dueling Mississippi State’s Pico Kohn (4-0, 2.52).

Anderson got LSU’s lone win against Texas when he struck out eight in six innings while holding the Longhorns to two runs.

“It was his best start of the year, considering the opponent,” Johnson said. “He pitched great and I don’t even think he even had his best stuff.”

Kohn (4-0, 2.52) was just as good in limiting Oklahoma to two scoreless on two hits in six innings of the Bulldogs’ 2-1 victory.

“One of the best pitchers in the league, no question about it,” Johnson said of Kohn. “Big, physical (with) arm strength. They have more arm strength out of the bullpen, probably, than we’ve seen out of anybody to this point. So we’ll be challenged in that regard.”

Most of LSU’s work this week, however, concerned its own pitching staff. Outside of Anderson, the Tigers’ bullpen fell apart in the middle-game loss to Texas and Sunday starter Chase Shores (4-1, 4.86) got roughed up in the finale.

Johnson and pitching coach Nate Yeskie did a deep dive into the problems.

“We went through about seven guys on the staff on things we can adjust,” Johnson said. “Everybody that pitched (last) weekend needs to be a little bit better.

“I don’t think it’s mountains that they have to climb. I think that’s it’s a little bit of improvement across the board will do wonders for our pitching. I’m confident that they will get that done.”