OU head baseball coach Skip Johnson is known to be a pitching guru.
It comes from a calm, steady mindset, according to those close to him, and it has driven the Sooners to the 2026 College World Series, their second trip to Omaha in the last five years.
“There are many, many great characteristics that Skip exhibits; that certainly is one of them,” former athletic director Joe Castiglione said. “And there's certain skills and experiences that Skip has had, which helped him develop that type of mindset and calmness about him and how it relates to his ability to keep his pitchers in the moment, as opposed to losing focus and letting all the emotions take over.”
Johnson has made five College World Series, including three during his time as an assistant/pitching coach and associate head coach for Texas in 2007-16. His 2022 College World Series team totaled an OU school record of 644 strikeouts.
“What he helped me a lot with was, and he's helped a lot of guys with is, the mental side of the game,” Carter Campbell, OU pitcher in 2022-24, said.
Johnson slowed them down, even in the big moments.
“We had like a whole system that we went through, and that was one thing that I never really had coming up as a pitcher,” Campbell said. “I (would) get sped up, and then I just keep trying. You get in there and fix it, whereas he would preach, ‘Take a step back, deep breath, flush it, back to green, here we go.’ And that was a big factor that played into my pitching performance. … Getting in those big situations and something bad happens, like, you need (that).”
Johnson helps his teams stay level-headed, no matter the score, according to Trevin Michael, who pitched for OU in 2022. The former Sooner right-hander closed two super regional wins that year and proved reliable in significant moments.
“It doesn't really matter what the score is; Skip just plays by the mentality of just trying to win one pitch at a time the whole game,” Michael said. “And if you do that, you're probably going to win the game.”
The steady attitude led the Sooners to regional and super regional wins in 2026 too.
The Sooners went into the bottom of the fourth inning down 8-2 against No. 2 overall seed Georgia Tech (50-11) in game six of regionals. Skip Johnson had already taken out his starter for that game, junior pitcher Cameron Johnson, after only 12 pitches, and put in senior pitcher Jackson Cleveland.
But he was calm.
“If he’s got it, he’s got it; if he doesn’t got it, he doesn’t have it. And sun’s going to come up tomorrow, …” Johnson said to the ESPN broadcast after the second inning. “Throw Cleveland out there, throw the rest of them out there, see how it goes.”
Skip Johnson ended up going to three pitchers after Cameron Johnson, including Cleveland. The bullpen finished with nine strikeouts and provided enough support for the Sooner offense to take the team to a 15-8 win.
Trusting in freshman pitchers to start 2026 NCAA Tournament games has proved to be reliable support for Johnson and the Sooners as well. Freshmen, Cord Rager, Xander Mercurius and Nick Wesloski, each started a regional game, and the first two led in super regional games as well. Mercurius recorded six strikeouts and pitched through four innings, spanning two days due to a weather delay, in OU’s win over game two of super regionals to take it to Omaha.
“We're not afraid to put them out there,” Johnson said.
The freshmen, led by Johnson, turned around a team that was poor on the mound to close the regular season, losing four straight series before the postseason and giving up at least nine runs in nine of 12 games in that stretch.
The 2026 run to the College World Series has been built on resiliency from a trio of freshmen. The 2022 path, while a resilient group effort, was led by current Chicago Cubs pitcher Cade Horton, the No. 7 overall pick in the 2022 MLB draft.
Horton is among 40 former Sooner players, 31 pitchers, to have been selected in the MLB after playing under Johnson. Castiglione said that Johnson’s former players in the MLB still call him for guidance on how to stay steady.
“A lot of people don't realize how many big-league ball players call Skip in the offseason or even during the season when they're struggling with whatever, control, confidence, whatever it might be,” Castiglione said.
Johnson will look to help his current pitchers continue to play under control when they start the College World Series against No. 7 overall seed Alabama (42-19) at 2 p.m. Saturday. The rest of the Sooners’ side of the College World Series bracket includes more SEC programs, No. 3 overall seed Georgia (51-12) and No. 6 overall seed Texas (45-13).
The Crimson Tide posed a challenge to the Sooners’ calm-under-pressure attitude, earlier in 2026, falling 1-2 in previous matchups this season. The series was held in Norman, but with Alabama fans traveling for the game, the three-game weekend averaged an attendance of 3,457, far greater than the 1,678 average number of fans at home games in 2022. The attendance gap is a testament to Alabama, but also matches a theme Johnson has seen across the Southeastern Conference since the Sooners joined in July 2024.
“It’s like a football atmosphere in a baseball arena, what the kids go through emotionally,” Johnson said. “Everyone, soon as they walk in, it's packed, and their adrenaline gets so high. … You really got to practice those things. I think the SEC is the best conference in the country.”
Johnson’s pitchers have put it together in the NCAA Tournament and look to show their renewed confidence in Omaha. Another appearance in the College World Series marks OU’s 12th in program history, with five coming from former head coach Enos Semore, and carrying on the success of past Sooner Omaha teams is exactly what Johnson set out to do when he left Texas for OU.
“I didn't come to the University of Oklahoma to leave a job vacancy,” Johnson said. “I came here to leave a mark on a program and to carry on the tradition that Enos Semore left.”
While Johnson steps foot in Omaha again with the same calm, steady mindset he has always had, Castiglione is confident the pitching mastermind is ready for the moment.
“I called Skip, ‘The Pitching Whisperer,’” Castiglione said, “and he just knows how to manage the situations.”
This story was edited by Josh Franklin.
