A legacy defining year for Mike Bianco
Ole Miss Baseball preview, a basketball program on the brink and some late Super Bowl thoughts
Hope everyone had a good weekend. We have a new podcast out with some Super Bowl and baseball thoughts at the top followed by our weekly SEC basketball conversation with former Andy Kennedy staffer Bracken Ray. You can check that out here or anywhere you get your podcasts.
We’ve got some basketball, baseball and staff turnover to discuss today.
Ole Miss Baseball begins its season in three days
College baseball is back this week. I think most of you have followed and read long enough to know that I love college baseball and think it is a criminally underrated sport despite its funding and scholarship flaws. I can’t wait to follow this season. We’ll have Collin Brister back on the podcast every Sunday to recap the week. To me, This newsletter and podcast will always be synonymous with college baseball and Collin due to how it all took off during baseball season last spring. I imagine some of you are reading this right now because of it. I am forever grateful for his help and had a ton of fun along the way. I can’t wait to dive in again.
Ole Miss is going to be good again. In fact, the SEC coaches picked the Rebels to win the SEC. There’s so much to unpack with this team and so many storylines, I am not sure where to begin. I suppose we will address the elephant in the room — or perhaps better put, the storyline that will linger over this team until June.
A legacy defining year for Mike Bianco
I’ve gotten this question a lot: why should I continue to care? It’s the same thing every year. With every year that passes between Bianco’s only Omaha appearance, this number of times I get asked this grows. It grew more rapidly than usual this offseason and I can’t help but think it’s because of how Bianco handled his candidacy for the LSU job last summer. That’s what makes this year different, in my opinion. In the past, if you were firmly in the anti-Bianco camp, I understood why, though more often than not the reasoning was flawed. It’s different now. If you begrudge him for driving to Birmingham to interview with a division rival while still serving as a sitting head coach of Ole Miss, I cannot refute that. It’s totally fair.
If that animosity is accompanied by the frustration of making the College World Series one time in 21 seasons, I can come up with a convincing counter argument that points to the level of recruiting with no scholarship advantages, the machine-like consistency of the program and the record-setting season ticket sales that’s becoming an annual tradition — but that argument gets weaker with every year that passes without a trip to Omaha. This isn’t some cutting-edge argument, but it bears repeating: it’s hard to get to the College World Series. Super Regionals are generally the best gauge of consistent success in this sport, because a best 2-out-of-3 series to decide the fate of a 56-game regular season is a bit of a crapshoot. But how long can you continue to explain away the lack of Omaha trips? Is one trip in a quarter century the breaking point? One in 30 years? Again, it gets harder to ignore by the year.
Now, lets factor in what Bianco is working with this season. Ole Miss will have arguably the most potent lineup in the sport. The Rebels return literally everyone from a season ago. Tim Elko is healthy. Jacob Gonzalez is coming off a ridiculous freshman year. Kemp Alderman is a year more experienced. So is Hayden Leatherwood. Kevin Graham, Justin Bench and Peyton Chatagnier are all veteran players now. Yes, Ole Miss lost two huge pieces of the weekend rotation in Gunnar Hoglund and Doug Nikhazy, but this year’s SEC doesn’t have a slew of well-known, experienced Friday night arms returning. Yes, there’s talent, and we will know a lot of the names here soon. But there aren’t a lot of the Jared Poche, Alex Lange, Kumar Rocker, Brady Singer types across the league this year that you know in February are going to be a handful on Friday nights. A lot of programs are in flux in terms of frontline starting pitching. So, if not now, then when?
Not to mention, Ole Miss avoided playing arguably the top three teams in the SEC East. Tennessee would like a word regarding that, but the Rebels get them at home and get to burn a road trip at Kentucky and have lowly Missouri in Oxford as their third SEC East opponent. On top of that, the Rebels begin SEC play with what should be the worst team in the West in Auburn, followed by the Vols at home, a road trip to a bad Kentucky team and then Alabama at home. That’s about as smooth of a first-half SEC slate as you could possibly draw. What’s been partially the issue with the last two teams? They had to go on the road for a super regional to a play a better opponent in their ballpark. This schedule sets up a reasonable path to 18-20 conference wins, which is an ironclad case for a national seed to ensure Ole Miss doesn’t leave Swayze Field for the postseason unless it’s eliminated or heading to the town in Nebraska. Again, if not now, then when?
This is a legacy defining season for Mike Bianco and one that will drastically alter the future of the program.
The weekend rotation is set:
Bianco said at media day last week that Derek Diamond would be the Friday night guy. This isn’t a surprise. Since then, the rest of the rotation has been made public. It’ll be Texas A&M Corpus Christi transfer lefty John Gaddis on Saturday and junior right-hander Drew McDaniel on Sunday.
This isn’t overly surprising. I would’ve guessed this wrong, though, and had Oregon State transfer Jack Washburn instead of McDaniel. I assume this means Washburn will start Tuesday against Arkansas State and I still think he’s in the weekend rotation when this all shakes out, but it’s not remotely surprising that Bianco gave the nod to McDaniel and the move makes sense. If you are looking for one area of this team to determine whether this group reaches its ceiling this year, look no further than the weekend rotation. The lineup will terrorize opposing pitching. I think there is a better chance than not that Ole Miss is much deeper in the bullpen this year than it was last season. Can the starting pitching be adequate enough to give this team a chance all on all three days every weekend? Diamond is sort of the anchor of this staff by default, but do you think he or anyone in this four-man group will have a long leash? The answer is no. Here’s a couple thoughts on each guy.
Diamond - This is a put up or shut up year for Diamond, similar to Tim Elko’s situation in 2020 (and really, last year because of Covid and all that, but you get the point). A former Stanford commit, Diamond is a mature, intelligent dude with a ton of talent. But his struggles are a mix of mental and physical. How much those intertwined last year, we will probably never know. From a pure velocity standpoint, Diamond looked like a different guy in April than he did in February in the Rebels’ three-game sweep of ranked Big 12 opponents in Arlington. The arm that pumped mid 90s fastballs past Texas wasn’t the same by April. Diamond also struggled with confidence at times. When things went poorly, it often snowballed. He was ousted from the rotation after a pedestrian start at Florida in early April, and struggled in relief against Arkansas and Mississippi State.
But there were also signs of fortitude from Diamond from that point on. He pitched six innings of one-run ball in a Thursday night start against LSU in place of Gunnar Hoglund, and he did so on about two hour’s notice. On the final weekend of the regular season, Diamond rallied in a start at Georgia on a night in which he had nothing from a stuff standpoint and gave up three runs in the first inning, got to the sixth inning and gave the Rebels a chance. He struck out eight in the SEC Tournament against Vanderbilt. Was it a turning point or a flash in the pan from a mental fortitude standpoint? We’ll soon see. Diamond also had an offseason elbow issue that, presumably, was rehabbed without surgery. At media day last week, he spoke like veteran. He spoke about spin rate compensating for raw velocity and getting more consistent with his slider and changeup. Diamond spoke like a man with a plan, but what happens when that plan goes awry is when we may learn the most about him. Ole Miss doesn’t need him to be great. It needs him to be consistently good.
John Gaddis - I would be lying if I told you I knew a ton about Gaddis. He projects as a low 90s fastball with a good changeup and an average breaking ball. By most accounts, he is a mature pitcher that understands how to pitch and get people out. If he does the latter consistently, he’ll have little issue staying in the rotation. There are some Christian Trent vibes with Gaddis and it’s not just because they are both left-handed. This is also worth nothing: Gaddis entered last season coming off an arm injury and wasn’t fully healthy until April. From April 9th on, Gaddis reached the seventh inning in six of his last seven starts and allowed four earned runs over 48.1 innings. I don’t care if it’s the Southland Conference, that’ll hunt anywhere.
McDaniel - He had moments last year, but ultimately struggled locating pitches, and in my opinion, became a bit predictable in what was essentially a two-pitch mix. To Bianco and this staff’s credit, they’ve been quite good in developing pitch mixes with pitchers. More often than not, younger pitchers show up with a better arsenal they did the year before. As much as we all love to poke fun at Bianco and his antiquated tendencies, they’ve used analytics an asset when it comes to pitching and made a lot of guys better. I am curious to see what this version of McDaniel looks like after his first full year of college baseball.
Washburn - He’s a legitimate three-pitch guy with power five college baseball pitching experience. If he’s as good as advertised, I don’t see how he isn’t in the weekend rotation at some point. The best version of Washburn is Ole Miss’s Saturday guy, and if that comes to fruition because of how good he is rather than others faltering in front of home, the Rebels will be cooking with gas.
Best guess as to what the lineup will be
C: Hayden Dunhurst
1B: Tim Elko
2B: Peyton Chatagnier
3B: Justin Bench
SS: Jacob Gonzalez
LF: Kevin Graham
CF: T.J. McCants
RF: Kemp Alderman
DH: Hayden Leatherwood
This one is pretty easy to project, ya know, considering Ole Miss returned literally everyone from the 2021 team. But I do have a couple of thoughts.
Keep in mind, this is what I think the lineup will be on Friday night, not necessarily what it will be in May. The first thing that comes to mind is third base. Reagan Burfurd is a newcomer (sort of) that has turned heads throughout the fall and winter. Burfurd signed with Ole Miss in 2020, went through fall ball and ended up going to junior college. He’s a good athlete that has, by all accounts, hit like a machine. I think he will contend to be the starting third baseman. If that happens, I think this team’s overall ceiling raises. Why? Because the ultra-versatile Justin Bench can go play center field and relieve (native infielder) T.J. McCants of a pretty tough job. Remember Bench playing center field in the early part of last season? It was the best center field play Ole Miss got all year. That’s not a knock at McCants, either. I understand why the lineup shook out the way it did from the standpoint of a couple minor injuries shuffling the deck and McCants hitting so well you couldn’t take him out of the lineup. Bench in the outfield makes Ole Miss much better defensively. McCants can be a good corner outfielder. Being a good center fielder is a much tougher task and the fact that Bench made it look easy is pretty remarkable. Burfurd is a guy to watch early on in this season.
To say there is Kemp Alderman buzz in this preseason would be putting it mildly. I think this staff believes he’s turned a corner as a hitter. He had Pedro Cerrano Syndrome last year. He has ridiculous power and hit straight ball very far when he was able to catch up to the velocity, but struggled with anything that wasn’t a fastball. It’s hardly uncommon for this to be the case for a first-year SEC player. Alderman has stupid power. The wedding reception venue that someone thought was a good idea to put up in right field is perpetually in danger when Alderman takes batting practice. He’ll strikeout a bunch, which will make fans mad. But if he’s a double-digit home run guy with a better than average OPS, he’s an asset for this lineup.
Can Hayden Leatherwood become more than a matchup guy in the eyes of Bianco? He teetered between an every day guy (that needed a defensive replacement late in games) and a guy Bianco refused to play against left-handed pitching last year, which I didn’t really think was fair. Leatherwood raked last year, aside from a three-week slump in May. I think he’s a good college hitter that’s Ole Miss’s best option at DH.
We’ve now filled out a starting lineup without mentioning the likes of Ben Van Cleve and a healthy Calvin Harris. I do not have stock in Van Cleve. His next collegiate home run will be his first. He has to be the most intimidating singles hitter in all of college baseball. But I am curious to see what a healthy Harris looks like. I think it gives Bianco the luxury of resting Dunhurst in midweek games that don’t matter, which I think will give Harris enough at bats early on to hit his way into a role.
The bullpen will be deeper by committee
The bullpen was Ole Miss’s most glaring weakness last season, and it eventually proved to be a fatal flaw once Hoglund was injured and everyone else was tasked with pick up the slack. The Rebels simply didn’t have enough guys that could be trusted to get outs. It’s why Taylor Broadway had to be Superman over the final six weeks of the season. The two most reliable arms after Broadway were a guy that wasn’t on the travel roster until late April in Jack Dougherty and a seldom-used Brandon Johnson.
This year, Ole Miss should have more options despite losing Broadway. If I had to guess, Johnson is the closer and Dougherty is a versatile long relief guy to start out the season. It wouldn’t stun me if Dougherty ended up in the rotation at some point and you have to think he will start a game at some point in June. Outside of those two, I am curious to see what kind of production Ole Miss gets from the likes of Jackson Kimbrell and Wes Burton. When they struggled, it was usually due to an inability to throw strikes. Kimbrell is one of two real left-handed options out of the bullpen and Burton can be a valuable asset in a variety of roles if he can get a grip on his command. That lanky frame plays and can compensate for not being an overpowering pitcher from a pure velocity standpoint. Max Cioffi should be available at some point this spring. He didn’t have surgery until April of last year so I would be stunned if he is ready by the start of the season, but he’s a veteran guy that will give this team a boost if he returns healthy. Lastly, what does Josh Mallitz look like after a tough freshman year?
From there, it’s what the newcomers bring to the table. Hunter Elliott is a freshman left-hander that will get opportunities early in the season. Dylan Delucia is an enticing junior college option that simply continued to get guys out during the fall and winter scrimmages. I have no clue what the right-hander projects as, but he seems like the wildcard in this bullpen. If he’s good, then the pen’s ceiling is raised higher. If he’s not, then it’s not a huge detriment either. There is a name or two that I didn’t list who will find a role. There always is.
This team is good enough to get to Omaha. If the pitching exceeds expectations, the Rebels are good enough to win the whole thing. That is not hyperbole. Whether it becomes prophetic remains to be seen.
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Did the dam break for Ole Miss Hoops?
Ole Miss lost in overtime to South Carolina on Tuesday night on a half court buzzer beater. This comes on the heels of losing (for a second time) to a 10-15 Mizzou team that will almost certainly be looking for a new coach this offseason. Ole Miss led by six with 4:24 remaining in the game after a Jarkel Joiner three pointer. It went 4:23 without another field goal until Joiner made a contested layup with one second remaining to send the game into overtime. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before.
The game itself was a myriad of offensive ineptitude. Ole Miss trailed 68-66 with 20 seconds left in regulation and had the basketball. Austin Crowley turned over a simple A-to-B pass 35 feet from the rim to end the possession before it started. Ole Miss only got another chance because South Carolina missed the front end of a 1-and-1. Ole Miss actually had control in the waning seconds of the overtime. With the game at 74 with 30 seconds remaining, Luis Rodriguez secured a rebound that basically gave Ole Miss the final crack at winning the game in the overtime period, with just one second separating the game clock and shot clock. This was the Rebels’ possession.
What a bruising screen on that pick and roll action. I hope No. 23 for the Gamecocks isn’t concussed.
It wasn’t a ton better than the possession that sent the game to overtime. That one just had a more favorable result. To their credit, the Rebels got Joiner going to the rim with his strong hand, but look at the mess on the inbounds pass, followed by whatever Luis Rodriguez was doing around the rim on the drive.
Here’s how they lost the game.
All of that aside, what transpired after the game was just as puzzling.
“"All we were doing was putting a safety in the back,” Davis said. “Matt went for a steal. All we were trying to do was get him to catch it in front. He went for a steal and the guy got behind him and made a half-court shot."
In fairness, it didn’t sound as bad coming out of his mouth and reads worse, but I am not sure it changes the optics of what looks like an embattled head coach throwing his player under the bus. This isn’t the first time this has happened. Kermit is candid when asked about specific plays and performance. I remember covering a game at Arkansas in 2019 in late February. If the Rebels won, they all but punched their ticket to the NCAA Tournament. Down by one point with a just 5.9 seconds remaining, 7-foot center Dominik Olejniczak (credit to me for still remembering how to spell that). took an inbounds pass 65 feet away from the rim and was tasked with handing the basketball to inbounder Breein Tyree, who was supposed to race up the floor and take one last heave of a shot. The play failed miserably.
“We have been running for a while, getting it to your guard going 100 mph down the court,” Kermit Davis said. “We have been running that for a long time. It is the first time in history I have a guy not hand it to him. It is what it is. I take full responsibility for it.”
You get the point, it’s far from the first time.
Back to last night. There was apparently also this on the radio broadcast.
Davis sounds like a man worried about his job security and frustrated at how this season is spiraling. Yes, this team has had injuries. But being down two starters and having it spiral like this is more indicative of a poorly-constructed roster than anything else. Every team has injuries. Alabama is missing a 5-star recruit and has been for two months. The Houston Cougars lost their two best players and have lost a total of one game since. Injuries happen. But it’s not an excuse for home losses to South Carolina and Missouri.
I’ve leaned toward Kermit getting a chance to rectify this next year around a promising young core, but if Ole Miss loses at Georgia — by far the worst team in the SEC who will definitely be firing their coach in a couple of weeks — on Saturday, don’t you have to start wondering if this staff deserves the chance to fix it? A loss Saturday makes losing nine games in a row to end the season entirely possible, and arguably likely. About that young core I just mentioned, keeping them together in Oxford with the program is a must. Well, Davis just ran rubber bus tires over one of the crucial pieces of that core because he got beat on an unguarded in-bounds pass to lose a meaningless February game. To use a word I enjoy, that’s suboptimal.
Saturday should be a rock fight, one that might be bizarrely consequential.
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**I wrote some Chris Kiffin and Super Bowl thoughts for a Monday newsletter I was not able to finish. Here they are below.**
Chris Kiffin heads back to the NFL
This new broke toward the end of last week but we never had the chance to discuss it here. Just 24 days after Lane Kiffin hired his brother, Chris, to be the program’s linebackers coach and co-defensive coordinator, Kiffin had a change of heart and decided to return to the NFL where he has spent the last two seasons. He’s headed back to his previous post as the Cleveland Browns defensive line coach.
I can see why this might raise some eyebrows, given the timing of it and having a coach renege on his decision to join his brother’s staff less than a month after taking the job, but I really don’t think there is a ton to it. I think Chris Kiffin likely took the job, remembered that he has to pretend to be friends with 16-year-old kids and text them year round, have little real offseason and go on the road recruiting in your down time and said, “eh, no thanks.”
Why take the job in the first place then? No clue. It’s a fair question. I assume there were probably some sentimental aspect of joining his brother’s staff and live in a place his family is familiar with, but that also probably made it easier to back out this quickly. He’s not really burning a professional bridge and his brother is likely more understanding than anyone else would be. You also have to remember this guy left college football because he was issued a show cause that banned him from coaching in the sport. It’s not like the recruiting side has been a positive aspect of the job for him, to little fault of his own if we are being honest. I get it. The NFL lifestyle is better. It’s a life-consuming grind for six or seven months, followed by a four or five month offseason. That’s something you just don’t have in college football anymore and NIL has only made that even more true. It’s unfortunate for Ole Miss, but the Rebels will survive. I have no clue who Lane Kiffin will hire, but they’ll manage just fine.
Rams outlast Bengals in 23-20 Super Bowl win
What a terrific Super Bowl to cap off a pretty legendary postseason. The product the NFL puts out delivers more consistently than any other sports and it showed why over the last five weeks. A couple of thoughts from the game.
Aaron Donald proved why he is the best defensive lineman in a generation and one of the three best to ever play. The way Donald impacted the second half of that game is pretty rare from one single player that isn’t a quarterback. Joe Burrow was sacked just one time in the first half, which was a huge win for a pedestrian Bengals offensive line. The Rams sacked Burrow six times in the second half. Two of those belonged to Donald and at least two more were because of the disruption he caused at the line of scrimmage. The final two plays of the game sum it up best. Who made both plays? Aaron Donald.
The Bengals tried to run for a first down on 3rd and 1 with running back Samaje Perine. Perine is 5-foot-11, 240 lbs. Perine is not a small man. That’s quite a load to stop from gaining three feet with a head start. Well, unless you are Aaron Donald’s right arm. I mean look at this. The guy just stopped moving once he hit Donald’s arm. That’s not normal. And then there was the final play.
Burrow never stood a chance.
Donald’s played in the NFL for eight seasons. He’s been a first team all-pro selection for seven of them. He won defensive rookie of the year in his first season. That’s all-time stuff there that we may never see again. The Rams ultimately won because they had Aaron Donald and the Bengals did not.
Matthew Stafford wasn’t great in this game but he was good enough when it mattered most. With five minutes remaining in the game and his team trailing by four, the Rams had to have a touchdown. Stafford delivered in the form of a 15-play, 79-yard drive that changed more legacies than his own. He capped with a perfectly placed throw to Cooper Kupp. But that wasn’t the throw to Kupp that had everyone talking. His 24-yard connection to Kupp on 2nd and 7 from the Cincinnati 46 is the one that will be etched in the minds of everyone for years to come, and with good reason.
To have the balls to execute this no-look throw, in that moment, with limited experience in moments like this after wasting a decade playing for Detroit, is remarkable. It’s also why most people remained bullish on Stafford’s talents, including head coach Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead who collectively orchestrated the offseason trade to acquire Stafford in the hopes of getting their franchise over the hump. That throw was worth every bit of it. His look-off displaced the linebacker just enough to fit the football right in the window Kupp was running through. He later hit Kupp on a timing play for the one-yard touchdown to win the game.
This is also proof that the stories you heard all season of Stafford and Kupp waking up at 5 a.m. to work out and work on chemistry actually matter. How many times have you heard that about two players on a team together? This moment is why those stores aren’t bullshit even though they get tiresome and feel like clichés during television broadcast. The final drive was a product of those summer mornings.
This sucks for Burrow and Cincinnati. The common refrain in these moments is “the future is bright. They’ll be back.” While I don’t necessarily disagree with the former or the latter part of that, it’s not always that simple. Ask Dan Marino. Or you could look around the quarterbacks in the AFC. Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Justin Herbert all reside in Burrow’s conference and are in the early stages of their career. That’s a tough road to get through every year. We’re going to be spoiled as fans watching them for a decade, but the amount of young quarterback talent in the AFC is going to limit the chances of some generationally talented guys to get to Super Bowls. I hope Burrow is back. What he did this year was remarkable. His future is bright but the road ahead is only going to get harder.
On the horizon:
Tons of baseball coverage in a Friday newsletter
A feature on an off-the-field battle an Ole Miss assistant coach and his family fought last fall.
A podcast with SkyBox’s NASCAR guru
Mailbag Friday pod with a weekend baseball preview.
That is all from me today. Thanks for being a loyal subscriber. Send to your friends and tell them to join in on the fun by hitting the subscribe button below. It is free.