A season-defining series + spring football notes
South Carolina scouting report, pitching notes, spring fotball update and some golf
We’ve got a new podcast out with Collin Brister that previews the Ole Miss-South Carolina series and has some basketball thoughts at the top. You can check that out here or anywhere you get podcasts.
We have some of that and more to get to today.
A spring football check in
I am playing some catch up here on spring football, but a handful of guys have spoken to the media over the last week or so. I’ll try to hit some highlights and add some thoughts.
TCU transfer running back Zach Evans spoke to local media for the first time since joining the program. You might remember Evans as a bit of a wildcard 5-star prospect out of high school in 2020. He was as highly-coveted of a running back as anyone in the last five years. His recruitment took several twists and turns and morphed into a a bit of a melodramatic saga. Evans ended up at TCU, which was seemingly in part due to other opportunities souring because of how his recruitment unfolded. Ole Miss remained in the sweepstakes for Evans until pretty late in the process. He ran for 648 yards on 92 carries in six games last year and averaged almost seven yards per carry before an injury ended his season. Evans entered the transfer portal and ended up at Ole Miss.
One of the most fascinating things about Evans is that no one I ever spoke with inside the recruiting industry ever questioned the kid’s talent. I say that because a lot of the time, when a guy has a dramatic recruitment that turns into a hassle (see Leo Lewis), it seems like the impact and production don’t always follow. That’s just my observation. I have no data to back that up. But the point is, anyone you talked to that knows recruiting or worked on a football staff never waivered when asked about what kind of difference maker he is. Former Ole Miss recruiting staffer and current Rippee Writes football correspondent Weldon Rotenberg said multiple times on the podcast that when Evans came to Ole Miss for visits, he was always respectful, engaging and a pleasant guy to be around. That didn’t necessarily jive with his reputation based on his recruitment, which fascinated me. Weldon also said Evans is as talented of a running back as he’s ever evaluated.
Without making entirely too much of an April media opportunity in spring practice, I was sort of impressed with Evans’ brutal honesty. In a setting in which all of these programs train these guys to say as little as possible, Evans engaged in every question and gave it a thoughtful answer. I’ll put it like this: very rarely in my time covering football was I ever entertained by a player interview. Most of them were quite boring. I didn’t get that vibe watching the Evans video, which might be why it lasted almost nine minutes — much longer than most of the player interviews last. Here are some highlights.
Evans said he is cousins with former Ole Miss running back D’Vaughn (Blue) Pennamon and came to games to watch Pennamon play during the Hugh Freeze era. The more you know.
When asked about his sporadic and varying workload at TCU last year, Evans didn’t mince words: “I felt like I was underused. I am not saying that staff didn’t know what they were doing or anything like that, but I felt like I wasn’t used enough in the offense.”
When Evans committed to Ole Miss, he said he immediately wanted to shift to being a recruiter. Evans wanted to get more players to come with him. He Instagram DM’d Jaxson Dart, Michael Trigg and others. Asked if he knew Dart and Trigg at the time, Evan said “Nope. I had just heard of them.”
Evans said that once he entered the portal, he narrowed down his schools to Ole Miss and Texas A&M. Why Ole Miss? “I wanted to get out of Texas. I don’t want to say the wrong thing, but at the next level, I don’t think I will be in Texas so I wanted to get a feel for being out of state.” It’s worth noting Evans is from Houston.
What else sold him on Ole Miss? “My relationship with Kevin Smith before he left and getting to know Kiffin better. They really just explained to me how they could use me in this offense and how I would fit.” — I think that answer opens a window into why Kiffin is more successful in the portal than he is with high school prospects, as we have talked about before. It’s much more business-like, similar to NFL free agency. In the portal, you aren’t bringing guys into sit on the sideline for a year or two,. You don’t have to make false promises and tell an 18-year-old that he will be the next Barry Sanders. In the portal, guys are older and are leaving their previous school for a reason. It’s much more straightforward. Guys want to play, succeed and go to the NFL, and I feel like Kiffin sells that message well. He’s a great evaluator of talent. He’s not always a great ass kisser.
I hope Evans speaks with media often this season.
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Trigg talks Dart friendship, journey to Ole Miss
Tight end Michael Trigg spoke about his close friendship with fellow USC transfer Jaxson Dart. The two were rumored to be a package deal from the time they both entered the transfer portal, and that ended up coming to fruition. Trigg told Dart that wherever Dart decided to go, he was going to go with him. They came on their visit together and committed soon after.
“Honestly, we do everything together,” Trigg said. “If he is hungry and I am not hungry, we will still go eat together. We do everything together.”
Ole Miss landing Dart gave them both a marquee quarterback and a playmaker at tight end that the offense lacked last year. Remember Kenny Yeboah in Kiffin’s first year? He coached the 2019 Mackey Award winner, Harrison Bryant, while at FAU. Kiffin seemingly prefers to have a tight end in his offense. The Rebels simply didn’t have the personnel to utilize that position last year. It sure sounds like they have the personnel this year.
“Really the phrase that comes to mind is ‘grown man catches,’” Kiffin said. “I was trying to describe what it looks like. It looks like the guy in high school playing with junior high kids. That is kind of how he plays. He is not necessarily faster than everyone, but his ball control and his length, he just looks older than everyone despite him being younger than most of them. It is very unique.”
I am curious to see how Trigg is used and how different the offense looks.
One quick side note: a video surfaced last week of Trigg dunking on Kifin’s son Knox. In the parenting move of the year, that was apparently upon request.
“Kiff asked me if I could jump over him and I said ‘of course,’” Trigg said. “I wish I could’ve done a windmill or something.”
Kiffin pleased with depth
One of the things that stuck out from Kiffin’s media opportunity last week was him sounding pleased with the depth on the defensive side of the football. Kiffin rarely gushes about a certain aspect of his football team unless he’s asked directly about a player that had an obviously outstanding game. But when asked about his front seven and what he has seen during the spring, he feels like the depth is SEC-caliber.
“I think it finally looks close to what we wanted it to be when we got here,” Kiffin said. “I don’t think it is any secret that we felt like we didn’t have many quality players that we could rotate up front. I think the draft has reflected that too, but I think we are now finally on that way.”
Kiffin did mention that the focus is more on linebacker with the Rebels losing Mark Robinson and Chance Campbell off last year’s team.
Other notes:
Kiffin said earlier this week the team has had had a lot of injuries at the skill positions, to the point of not having any tight ends. He doesn’t believe any of them are long term."
Asked about receivers that have emerged, Kiffin mentioned Braylon Brown, Brandon Buckhaulter and J.J. Henry by name. It is interesting to me he mentioned three younger players as opposed to a couple of other guys who have been in the program for a couple of years.
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J.J. Pegues sounds like he’s happy to be home
Oxford native and Auburn transfer J.J. Pegues sounds like a guy who is happy to have left The Plains. The former four-star tight end chose the Tigers out of high school. After his freshman year, Gus Malzahn was fired and Bryan Harsin’s staff moved him to defensive line. While the position change was undoubtedly the best move for both his collegiate and professional future, it does not sound like he got along with what is now an embattled Auburn coaching staff.
“I started to have second thoughts about the place,” Pegues said. “I tried out the other staff and just didn’t really like the environment and some of the coaches there. I decided to hit the portal and come home, and it’s been great since.”
Pegues is part of the newfound defensive line depth Kiffin is referring to.
A season-defining series for Ole Miss in Columbia
Ole Miss kicks off a three game set with South Carolina tonight. Simply put, this series will ultimately define the rest of its season and what it has left to play for. The Rebels simply cannot afford to lose two games. That would put them at 5-10 at the halfway point of SEC play, needing to go 9-6 against the likes of LSU and Arkansas on the road, Mississippi State, Mizzou and Texas A&M at home in order to make the NCAA Tournament. That’s a difficult path for a good baseball team. Is a team that hypothetically lost two games to this Gamecocks team remotely likely to achieve that? Of course not.
If the Rebels take two, they’ve still got a shot to make the NCAA Tournament and find their footing a bit with three home series remaining. And while I don’t think this is at all likely, a sweep would dramatically change the discussion. All of a sudden, Ole Miss would be 7-8 with a fledgling Mississippi State team coming to Oxford on Double Decker weekend. Again, it’s unlikely, but I am just going down the road to highlight how dramatically important this series is — no matter the result — in determining whether the Rebels tread water and find their way versus turning the final five weeks of the regular season into a somber formality.
Bianco announced full rotation
For the first time in two weeks, Mike Bianco announced a full rotation ahead of the weekend. Dylan Delucia will go on Thursday, Derek Diamond on Friday and Jack Washburn will again get the baseball on Sunday. A couple of thoughts.
The first thing that sticks out is that Bianco is going with a trio of right-handers. South Carolina is horrific against right-handed pitching. In SEC play, the Gamecocks hit .184 against right-handers. So, while I doubt anyone reading this is thrilled to hear Bianco is playing the lefty-righty matchup game once again after last week, I think it will serve them a little better this week from the sheer standpoint of having better right-handed options.
Piggybacking off of that, I would’ve started Hunter Elliott in game two. I think he’s pitched fine the last two weeks and was failed by his defense in both outings. I have to believe Bianco is using Derek Diamond as an opener of sorts, even if he doesn’t want to say the term out loud. Diamond retired the first nine hitters he faced last week in relief during the Sunday game against Alabama and looked dominant doing it. Then the lineup turned over and he was tagged for two home runs. That is the story of Derek Diamond to a tee. If Diamond is still in the game in the fourth inning on Saturday, I will officially have no clue what No. 5 is doing.
Whether it was due to matchups or something else, having Dylan DeLucia back on Friday makes way more sense. After all, he is still the only pitcher on the team to have an outing of six innings or longer in SEC play, and he’s done that twice. Matchups is what caused Bianco to go with the left-hander Elliott on Friday last week against Alabama despite DeLucia tossing 6.1 innings of one-run (unearned), three-hit baseball at Kentucky the week prior — an outing that saved Ole Miss’ ass and stopped a losing streak. In a newsletter last week, I wondered what message that sent DeLucia. He put together the best start of anyone on the team but that somehow didn’t earn him the right to take the baseball again the next week?
In Monday’s newsletter, I wondered if Bianco was overthinking things with the whole ‘we don’t have starters and relievers, we just have pitchers’ thing. Bianco went with a blank-slate mindset because the starting pitching was horrible. After the Tennessee series, he even admitted that the bullpen had been good and that the team needed length from starters. So why scrap the entire idea of traditional starters and disrupt a competent bullpen just for the sake of a new mindset? If your car had engine failure, would you search for a new engine or paint the car a different color? One seems more prudent than the other. DeLucia back as a starter feels right. If he pitches well again, Bianco would be better off leaving him be and not messing up a good thing.
The case for Mallitz, Cioffi
In Tuesday’s 8-2 win over Murray State, fifth-year senior Max Cioffi made his season debut in what was his first outing in over 12 months after an elbow injury limited him to just two outings last season. Cioffi had Tommy John Surgery last April. His fastball was around 87-88 mph, a couple of ticks down from his normal velocity, which is pretty common for guys coming off that type of surgery. The breaking ball looked really sharp. He threw 21 pitches and 14 strikes in a scoreless inning.
Cioffi is a guy who pitched sparingly as a freshman in 2018, had an up-and-down year as a spot weekend reliever in 2019 and was beginning to find his form in 2020 before the season was shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Cioffi made six appearances in 2020 that spanned eight innings. He allowed zero earned runs, gave up just three hits and struck out 12 hitters with no walks. He was borderline dominant the last time he was fully healthy. I don’t know what his limit and capabilities are from a health standpoint, but Cioffi is a guy that has more experience than most of the other bullpen arms and will absolutely be an option the Rebels will need out of the pen. I imagine the staff will tread lightly when it comes to workload and ease him back into an in-season routine. But make no mistake, this is a sorely needed boost for the pitching staff. I am curious to see if he pitches this weekend.
And there is Josh Mallitz. He threw 2/3 of a scoreless inning against Murray State. Mallitz has now 11 thrown innings this season. He has scattered eight hits and has not allowed a run with 14 strikeouts and six walks. Of those 11 frames, 8.2 have come against SEC opponents + a ranked Southern Miss team. However, none of those 11 innings could be classified as meaningful aside from the Southern Miss outing. Almost all of them have been in mop-up time of lopsided games.
So, I ask this: at what point does he get a crack at meaningful innings? Doesn’t he have to get a chance? Mallitz was much maligned last year in a struggle of a freshman year. A lot of that was due to Bianco putting him in unfair situations because he was one of he few bullpen arms that consistently threw strikes. He’s also not the first pitcher to struggle in the SEC as a freshman. Mop-up time or not, Mallitz’s fastball is hitting 94 and he’s thrown a breaking ball and a changeup for strikes. He deserves a chance to throw innings that matter. How can it possibly get any worse as it pertains to this pitching staff? How has the one guy who has yet to allow a run on the year not already been called to help?
I think both Mallitz and Cioffi will find a way to help a pitching in dire need of reinforcements. Keep an eye on that this weekend.
South Carolina scout
The Gamecocks are 16-16 and 4-8 in the league. It’s a bizarre team. They have series wins over Texas when it was No. 1 in the country and Vanderbilt. But were swept by Tennessee and lost two of three to both Missouri and Georgia. South Carolina was hit by the injury bug on the mound before the season began. Friday night starter Julian Bosnic has yet to pitch this year. Sunday starter James Hicks hasn’t pitched since February 26 and is out for the season.
To compound that, the Gamecocks rank last in virtually every major offensive statistical category in conference play, aside from slugging percentage and home runs. The Gamecocks don’t strikeout a ton and walk at an average clip. They simply don’t get a lot of hits with runners on base. This will be an interesting litmus test for the Rebels pitching staff. If they struggle to get this lineup out, well, then this entire conversation might be moot.
On the mound
Friday: RHP Adian Hunter
Saturday: RHP Noah Hall
Sunday: RHP Will Sanders
South Carolina is essentially pitching in reverse. Sanders is the de facto ace with Bosnic out and would’ve been the Saturday guy otherwise. He’s got good numbers and is a good SEC starter. He Will have a mid-90s fastball with a slider and changeup. Again, he is a very good SEC pitcher. Hall and Hunter were originally useful bullpen arms but, much like with Ole Miss, found themselves in the rotation due to some reshuffling.
Ole Miss should win this series. It is all but doomed if it doesn’t. I think the Rebels take two because I don’t think they are as bad of a baseball team as they showed last weekend. Don’t get that confused: I don’t think this team is a host or nearly as good as most thought, but I don’t think they are as bad as last weekend. This is an absolutely massive series that will dictate the result of this season as well as what happens after it is over.
Magnolia State Golf Update
We are back with the golf update this week as the Korn Ferry Tour is back in action and a couple of Mississippians are teeing it up on the PGA Tour this week.
The Korn Ferry Tour is in Arlington, Texas this week for the Veritex Bank Championship played at the Texas Rangers Golf Course. Oddly enough, this course is literally across the street from my first apartment in the DFW area. Cool course with an awesome clubhouse.
Olive Branch native and Ole Miss alum Braden Thornberry is in the field. He shot 76 yesterday and is going to miss the cut. This layout, as most are on the Korn Ferry Tour, is a complete shootout. I followed Hayden Buckley around last year during this. He shot a second-round 64, was five off the lead when he holed his last putt. By the time he teed off for his third round, he had cleared the cut line by like two shots. You have to go low on this track. Thornberry has struggled mightily to start this season. He’s been in contention twice entering the weekend, but two costly Saturday rounds have kept him from cashing in on both money and valuable points. He is currently 85th in the points standings. The top 25 earn a PGA Tour card at the end of the year, and the 26th-75th qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour Finals — a three-tournament series that awards an additional 25 PGA Tour cards. Thornberry needs to make a move to get inside the top 75.
The PGA Tour is in Hilton Head, South Carolina this week for the RBC Heritage at the famous Harbour Town Golf links. Two Mississippians are in the field.
Fulton native and Mississippi State alum Chad Ramey is even thru one hole as of this writing. He tees off at 8:05 tomorrow. Ramey is making his second start since winning the Corales Puntacana Championship in the Dominican. Ramey is a great story of perseverance and self belief. The 29-year-old grinded on mini tours and steadily worked his way up through the Korn Ferry Tour. He now has a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour, will play in the PGA Championship, sits 41st in the FedEx Cup standings and is now a millionaire. Ramey will have a strong shot at PGA Tour rookie of the year.
Hattiesburg native and Alabama alum Davis Riley shot four-over 75 this morning. Riley has had a hell of a year in his own right. He lost to Sam Burns in a playoff in the Valspar Championship last month. Though he missed out on a win, he’s got two top-10 finishes and is 43rd in the points standings. Riley is a superstar in the making. He won twice on the Korn Ferry Tour before the Covid-19 shutdown and essentially spent 18 months biding his time through an unprecedented, pandemic-induced wraparound Korn Ferry Tour season until he got his PGA Tour last fall. He will win multiple times on the PGA Tour in the years to come.
*Hayden Buckley is technically first alternate and could conceivably get into the field if someone withdraws in the afternoon wave.
On the horizon
Sunday baseball conversation pod
spring football feature story
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