ATHENS — Wes Johnson quickly became known as “The Wizard” by his players for his baseball acumen, turning Georgia into an annual contender.

The “Diamond Dawgs” sit atop the SEC standings with four conference series remaining, having taken four of five SEC series to this point for an 11-4 league mark and 29-8 overall record that has them ranked No. 5 in the latest D1Baseball.com poll.

It’s Georgia’s best conference start in 17 years, even after No. 20-ranked Florida took two of three games from UGA at Foley Field over the weekend.

The Bulldogs fans’ have responded to Johnson’s success on and off the field since he was hired three years ago, as UGA had 13 sellouts in each of the 2024 and 2025 seasons and added a fifth sellout this season over the weekend.

Off the field, Johnson’s success has translated to financial gains, with $9.5 million in donations between 2023 and 2025. The donor funds have backed up $45 million in recent stadium renovations, which increased capacity from 2,760 to 3,633 since 2025 and provided players elite facilities and state-of-the-art training technology.

Johnson said the commitment to improve the facilities played a role in him leaving his post as an assistant at LSU to take the UGA head coaching job three years ago.

“When I heard the fact that we’re doing the $45 million upgrade and we want technology, that was a perfect match right there,” said Johnson, a noted expert in baseball analytics and applied technology. “I’m huge on development there.”

Players have taken note, as Georgia landed the No. 1 transfer class in the nation this offseason, per the 64 Analytics baseball website.

UGA also features All-American candidate Tre Phelps, an original UGA signee who leads the Bulldogs’ offensive attack with a .398 batting average, while second-year transfer Daniel Jackson (Wofford) is setting the pace with 16 home runs.

Rylan Lujo (Dayton) is tops among the new transfers at the plate with a .380 batting average.

Johnson, who received a contract extension last May and now earns $1.3 annually — tied for 9th-highest in the SEC and 13th-highest in the nation — knows his team will be challenged this weekend when it travels to play at No. 16-ranked Arkansas after UGA plays host to East Tennessee State at 3 p.m. on Tuesday.

“Pitching has been good and we’ve got enough hits,” said Johnson, whose team still leads the nation with 98 home runs despite being held without a home run in losing two of three to Florida over the weekend.

“We’ve won a couple of games without hitting home runs so it shows you that our offense can get hits. We don’t need to rely on the long ball as much.”

But Georgia, like most every other program, does need to maintain pace with donations and ticket revenue to stay competitive in today’s NIL era.

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution review of UGA’s annual NCAA financial report revealed Georgia has taken in 2 1/2 times more in ticket revenue the past two years ($1.7 million) than the previous two ($668,000), while drawing seven times as much in annual donations than the previous two years.

The increase in ticket revenue is partly attributed to UGA hosting more postseason games over the past two seasons in addition to an increase in ticket pricing, with interest and demand still on the rise.

There’s also been a 71 percent uptick in the past year alone in the Georgia baseball fund, with more dollars flowing in for priority seating.

“Since Wes Johnson has gotten here I can see the increase in attendance,” said David Johnston, who has been handling play-by-play duties for baseball on th Georgia Bulldogs radio network the past 27 years.

“Even the mid-week game against Presbyterian, which was a 3 o’clock start this week, was a sellout, and that never used to happen,” he said. “The interest Wes has created in Georgia baseball has been unbelievable.”