The Georgia baseball team had long since poured out of the Foley Field home dugout and the water bottles that were thrown on the field in jubilation had been cleaned up.

The Bulldogs celebration that carried into center field after a 13-8 victory on Saturday night over LSU on May 9 had ended and players had doused coach Wes Johnson with blue sports drink.

Now, some 20 minutes later, it was postgame photo time for the freshly minted 2026 SEC regular season champions.

They gathered in front of the spot on the right field wall where the previous seven seasons of Georgia SEC championships were listed, the last in 2008. Above them on the video board was a graphic that recognized this year’s team as SEC champions.

“Watching the program grow in such a shot amount of time, it’s awesome,” said pitcher Paul Farley, who has been with the Bulldogs for all three seasons with Johnson and got the win in relief Saturday. “We’ve got four SEC games left and to be able to hang that up there the SEC champs already it’s amazing.”

Farley was speaking figuratively because the 2026 numbers weren’t on the outfield fence just yet.

Fifth-ranked Georgia (40-11, 20-6 SEC) still has a chance to put a College World Series trip up there in left field for the first time since 2008 and in a best case scenario add another national championship year in right field with the 1990 season.

“SEC champs is great, but obviously we want to do bigger and better things,” Farley said.

LSU, the team that won it all last season, was still around having a postgame talk on the artificial turf field long after the game ended.

Johnson was with LSU in 2023 as pitching coach when it won another College World Series.

“It’s massive,” Johnson said of this latest championship. “Anytime you can win this league, man, it’s so hard. Then win it outright. It’s something you want to check off on your list of things you’ve ever accomplished. It’s 10 weekends of just meat house grinding.”

Johnson said he didn’t know that the dominoes had fallen Saturday to set up Georgia being able to clinch except that he saw that Texas lost at Tennessee as the result flashed on the scoreboard.

Texas A&M also lost twice at Ole Miss to set up the clinch for Georgia.

“I’m calling pitches, I’m locked in,” Johnson said.

He said assistant coach Will Coggin told him when the game ended that ‘We’re champs.’”

Many of the players knew.

“We had a few inside operatives, I’d say, tell us,” Farley said.

Shortstop Kolby Branch said he didn’t know “until the water bottles started flying.”

Branch said another Georgia team loaded with transfers grew closer in the fall and built relationships that have turned into wins this season.

Johnson said winning the regular season title in his third season as coach in the age of the transfer portal and NIL “means a lot.”

Johnson mentioned Farley, Branch and Tre Phelps being at Georgia for all three of his seasons.

“Seeing where we were in the first fall, we forget this used to be dirt and grass,” Johnson said standing on on turf field. “And we didn’t have the cool building and we only had one batting cage, all the stuff we’ve been able to do since we’ve been here. The other side is just understanding true belief and understanding what guys can do.”