Ole Miss begins the only chapter that was ever going to matter
A failure of a regular season, how it affects the postseason outlook and the Jimbo-Saban feud
We have a new podcast out with Collin Brister. It’s our usual Sunday baseball conversation discussing Ole Miss’ series loss to Texas A&M, the end of an underwhelming regular season, the Rebels’ NCAA Tournament chances and more. You can check that out here or anywhere you get your podcasts.
We’ve got the same thing to discuss today, plus a hilarious feud between two SEC football coaches.
Rebels drop two of three to Aggies
Ole Miss was brought back down to earth a bit by a red hot Texas A&M team that clinched an SEC West title at Swayze Field on Saturday afternoon. I have some quick thoughts on the series, what was real and what wasn’t, and the Thursday ejection shenanigans before we get to the bigger picture and what it means. So, here we go.
DeLucia falters, puts Ole Miss in early hole in the series opener
Dylan DeLucia was ineffective for a second consecutive home start in the Rebels’ 10-5 loss on Thursday night. DeLucia’s fastball looked flat and his breaking ball lacked bite. I have to imagine that fatigue played a role. DeLucia was pitching on two days short of normal rest, after having pitched on both days of a rain-suspended series opener last week. Bianco has ridden DeLucia heavily in terms of eating innings and preserving the bullpen. Bianco seems to have no issues allowing DeLucia’s pitch count to rise well over 100. That’s not a critique, it’s just a statement of fact. DeLucia had a four-week stretch in which he tossed nearly 460 pitches. That’s going to catch up to any pitcher at some point. Friday looked like that point. And while he left the game down 7-0 with just three of those runs being unearned thanks to a Hayden Leatherwood defensive gaffe, the fate hardly felt undeserved. The majority of the five outs DeLucia recorded were loud. Texas A&M was not fooled by DeLucia. The Aggies smelled blood in the water and took control of the game.
I don’t put a ton of stock into DeLucia’s outing being a sign of a looming issue. Texas A&M has one of the best offenses in the country. Tennessee’s lineup gets most of the attention, but the Aggies led the conference (SEC games only) in hits, runs scored, RBIs, batting average, on-base percentage, walks, doubles, triples and runs scored. The only difference between the two lineups is that Tennessee hits the ball over the fence more frequently. The Aggies are really damn good. That’s a tough assignment on short rest.
DeLucia is a competitor and was apparently available in relief on Saturday if needed since he only threw 57 pitches. It’s probably best that didn’t happen. He now gets the ball with a chance to pitch Ole Miss off the bubble on Tuesday in Hoover (more on that later). I think he’s fine.
Offense showed some good, some ‘eh’ nd some bad
If you are looking for evidence that this team has turned a corner despite this weekend’s result, I thought the offensive performance on Friday, and particularly Saturday, was pretty convincing. Saturday’s 14-run barrage spoke for itself, obviously. But I also thought there were some decent signs Friday. Ole Miss got down 7-0 because of pitching struggles and poor defense, and the offense immediately responded with three-spot in the bottom of the second inning to get themselves on more stable footing and remain in the game. There were a handful of missed opportunities. The Rebels left 10-men on base, but they were 2-7 with men in scoring position and 5-14 with two outs. They put pressure on A&M starter Nathan Dettmer and got him out of the game in the fourth inning. That was Dettmer’s shortest start in league play.
To add to my point, it felt like Ole Miss was in the game until the 7th or 8th inning, didn’t it? Whereas, four weeks ago, if this team fell behind 7-0 in the second inning, the opposing starter spinning seven innings of one-run ball en route to an 11-2 win (or something like that) felt like a certainty, right? The Rebels didn’t complete the comeback, but gave themselves a chance against a Friday-night-caliber arm.
Game two was more of the same. What’s made A&M’s season so remarkable is that it won all of these games with pretty average to bad starting pitching behind Dettmer. The wheels came off for former Texas Tech star and (supposed to be Aggies ace) Micah Dallas a month ago, and it’s been sort of a revolving door in those final two slots ever since. Ole Miss preyed on that weakness on its way to a 14-6 game two victory.
What was not good at all and really the clearest sign of a regression was how the team performed in the series finale after it fell behind. The Drew McDaniel debacle aside, Ole Miss losing a 5-2 lead and doing nothing at the plate for the rest of the game wasn’t great. The Aggies bullpen faced two over the minimum from the fourth inning on. Joseph Menefee is a decent SEC reliever, but had no business stifling this offense the way he did. That was a feeble end to the regular season. It’s just one game, but this offense playing nine games of competent baseball in a row isn’t enough to give them the benefit of the doubt yet. There’s been more bad than good with this underwhelming lineup. I am interested to see what that looks like in Hoover.
College Basketball season may be over, but NASCAR is in full swing, NBA playoffs is live on the site. Go checkout Skybox sports to guide you through your sports wagering adventure. Skybox is the ONLY way to profit in the long run. They are the best in the industry. Use the promo code “rippee” for 20 percent off any picks package you purchase.
If you’re into sports betting, you need to use these guys You’re wasting money if you don’
Fight, fight!
I really don’t have a nuanced take on the dust-up that happened in the ninth inning on Thursday night. John Gaddis likely wasn’t in a great mood after giving up a tape measure shot to Jack Moss. It was noticeable to me that, even before this sequence, Dylan Rock and several Aggies batters were taking their sweet time to get back into the batter’s box between pitches. Gaddis is a quick worker on the mound. The dilly-dallying from the A&M hitters clearly perturbed him further, so he quick-pitched Rock after a first-pitch ball. Rock didn’t like this, promptly sent the next pitch into orbit and let Gaddis know about it while admiring his work as he trotted down the first base line. I probably would’ve done the same thing if I were Rock, and you would have, too — whether you want to admit it or not.
Words were exchanged. Tim Elko and Peyton Chatagnier got into the mix too. What I thought really escalated things beyond the normal jawing in a moment like that was Texas A&M’s first base coach yelling at Elko and Gaddis. That’s not a great look and is not something you see often. Bianco seemed pretty mad about it as well. Gaddis then escalated things further by chucking 88 right at the back of Blake Bost to begin the next at-bat. Gaddis was immediately ejected, and rightfully so. He is also serving a four-game suspension. As I understand it, because an official warning had been issued, by rule, Mike Bianco was ejected and suspended for the next game. I am not sure I fully understand that rule. I guess it’s a preventative measure in situations like this to keep a domino effect of retaliations from happening, but it seems extreme.
Gaddis’ suspension did cost Ole Miss. Remember the McDaniel debacle you all probably fumed over in game three? What if Gaddis was available in that spot? Bianco has used him in similar situations before. Didn’t it seem peculiar he brought McDaniel on in relief there after he had seemingly found a home as the fourth starter? It’s worth mentioning. Also, Ole Miss might need Gaddis in Hoover and is now without one of its few left-handed options. Hell, if the Rebels lose on Tuesday and still get into the NCAA Tournament, Gaddis won’t be available for game one of a regional. Was it really worth it? I don’t condone throwing at folks, but I also admire not getting punked, too. In a weird way, I thought it was refreshing to see Ole Miss show some savagery — and it came from the normal mild-mannered Tim Elko and Justin Bench in addition to Chatagnier.
My final take: it was stupid but not the end of the world. At least they showed some fight, right?
This regular season was a failure, but it can be rectified
Ole Miss finished the 2022 regular season with a record of 32-21 and a 14-16 mark in SEC play. There is no other honest way to assess it: this regular season was an unmitigated failure that fell drastically short of reasonable expectations for this team. In a year with everything on the line, Ole Miss fraudulently coasted on those preseason expectations for five weeks, all the way to becoming the No. 1 ranked team in the sport, only to be exposed by a Tennessee team — who was actually the best team in the sport — in early March. That series commenced an eight-week free fall fueled by bad baseball, missed opportunities, and, at times, a lack of resolve.
Pushed to the brink of its season ending before the calendar turned to June, to this team’s everlasting credit, it did not wilt. Ole Miss fought its way to an 8-2 finish over the final ten games to crawl back onto the bubble and put itself in decent position to earn a bid to the NCAA Tournament — or, in other words, an opportunity to extend a season with everything at stake. These last two weeks of competency do not absolve the eight weeks of futility. That math simply doesn’t add up. This team was supposed to be contend a top-eight national seed. They were heavy preseason favorites to host at least one round of postseason baseball in Oxford and likely two. Instead, they head to the SEC Tournament in Hoover looking to cement a ticket to the 64-team dance that many had them on the short list to win.
It’s as head-scratching of a regular season as I can remember. I am somehow simultaneously shocked they faltered so badly to end up in this position as I am stunned they finished 7-2 in league play just to get into this position. It truly didn’t have to be this way. Ole Miss went 7-3 in SEC series openers and finished with a 9-6 road record, but posted an abysmal 5-10 mark at home. The Rebels went 1-8 against the likes of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi State in their home ballpark, and a 2-10 home SEC record against clubs not named Missouri. If Ole Miss was a pedestrian team in its own ballpark, I’d be writing about hosting projections. Again, it did not have to be this way.
Now, as postseason baseball arrives, all of that is sort of irrelevant in terms of Ole Miss’ immediate future. Of course it isn’t irrelevant in grander scheme of things, but for now, it doesn’t really matter. Tomorrows are seldom in postseason baseball. In June, it matters little how you got to where you arrived, but what you do with the opportunity in front of you. Ole Miss could’ve gone 25-5 like Tennessee did and bulldozed a league devoid of top-end pitching. It could’ve easily been a top-eight national seed and ensured that it played every single game at Swayze Field up until the College World Series. But, in the end, the Rebels would’ve had to do the same thing in the postseason whether they went 25-5 or 14-16 — win.
It’s as simple (and obvious) as that.
Should Ole Miss earn a bid into the NCAA Tournament, it will need to win (essentially) the same number of baseball games whether the Rebels played at Swayze Field, Corvallis, Hattiesburg or Mars. In this quirky sport, teams underperform in the regular season every single year, end up in a road regional and still fulfill or exceed the expectations bestowed on them in the preseason. I am neither predicting nor dismissing Ole Miss’ chances of doing that. I am merely pointing out that it’s not all that uncommon, despite it never happening in the Bianco era. In order to do that, Ole Miss will need to do something unprecedented in the Bianco era — win a road regional. Yes, the path will be more arduous than it would’ve if the Rebels met regular season expectations, but the path exists and is the same length as the 63 other teams in the field— assuming they’ve done enough to earn a seat at the table.
Current Deal: For being a loyal subscriber, show him proof of subscription and you’ll get a 16 oz. prime strip for $20 and a pack of sausage for $5. That’s a hell of a dinner on the grill for 25 bucks. Go check LB’s out. It’s the best place in Mississippi to get meat and Oxford is lucky to have it.
Rebels play Vandy in Hoover looking to get off the bubble
Ole Miss plays Vanderbilt on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. (CT) in the first round of the SEC Tournament in Hoover. The overarching question surrounding this game is whether the Rebels have done enough to earn a bid into the NCAA Tournament regardless of the result of this game. In short, I tend to believe the answer is yes. But I am just some some clown with a newsletter. The circumstances and factors that go into comprising the NCAA Tournament bubble will change throughout the week as well, so, in other words, it’s not a certainty.
As of this writing, Ole Miss sits at 36th in the RPI. It has 15 SEC wins (Governor’s Cup) in the eyes of the NCAA Tournament selection committee. It played good baseball down the stretch of the season. The latter isn’t suppose to matter in the eyes of the committee, but we see year after year that it does matter how a team is playing at the end of the season. I think Ole Miss has done enough.
According to a well-written story by my pal Chase Parham, since 2003, 13 SEC teams have finished the regular season and SEC Tournament with 14 conference wins. Six of the 13 made the NCAA Tournament. Ole Miss was one of those teams in 2017. That team did not earn a bid. That team lost the Governor’s Cup and finished the year with a 37 RPI. Those two anecdotes underscore that the Rebels’ current body of work is far from a certainty, but looking that bubble and the other teams fighting for a bid, I think this year favors Ole Miss more than 2017 did.
Here’s my read on it: I think Ole Miss has done enough to feel pretty good about earning an at-large bid. I think a win on Tuesday against Vanderbilt would remove all doubt. Basically, a Saturday win against Texas A&M would’ve made Ole Miss bullet proof against bid stealers in conference tournaments. The Rebels lost, so they are no longer immune to a crazy conference tournament week around the country. If Ole Miss loses on Tuesday, the the path to the Rebels being left out of the tournament is one littered with conference tournament upsets across the sport. That’s not far-fetched by any stretch, but it’s also not a probability. A loss on Tuesday would leave Ole Miss scoreboard watching for the next six days, whereas a win over Texas A&M would’ve rendered all of this completely moot.
The good news for Ole Miss is that its fate is entirely in its hands. If the Rebels beat Vanderbilt on Tuesday, it is 100 percent, set in stone, in the NCAA Tournament. DeLucia will take the baseball for the Rebels. The best version of this team has emerged with him on the mound. Vanderbilt will throw Sunday starter Carter Holton, who has been the Commodores most consistent starter over the course of the last two months. Holton has been Vanderbilt’s Sunday guy, but did not pitch in the final weekend of the season against LSU — a series that the Dores were swept in. Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin cited rest purposes. It was an odd move considering that had the Commodores won just one game against LSU, they’d likely feel pretty good about hosting a regional. Vandy finished with a 15-15 SEC record and sit at No. 5 in the RPI. A deep run in Hoover will put them back in to the hosting conversation. In other words, they have everything to play for, too.
To sum it all up, Ole Miss has a chance to cement its postseason fate on Tuesday with a win. A loss leaves takes things out of the Rebels’ hands, though I think they will still be fine. The winner of this game will face Tennessee on Wednesday, meaning their run will likely end after one win. Beyond that, I do think it is important for this team to continue to play good baseball. For the most part, Ole Miss has played pretty good baseball for three weeks now. The last two times the Rebels have been to Hoover, it’s sort of rejuvenated their season in a way. The 2019 team made it all the way to Sunday and back-ended a host spot. Last year’s team made it to Saturday and answered some pitching questions it had along the way. The SEC Tournament has been favorable to Ole Miss in recent history, and while I doubt this year’s tournament fill feature a lengthy run, it does give the team an opportunity to solidify its postseason fate. Like everything else concerning this team for the next days, weeks or however long this season extends, the opportunity is there for the taking.
Saban-Fisher clash underscores silliness of how CFB coaches operate
Last week was certainly an interesting one in the world of college football. Nick Saban, who rarely makes headlines for anything salacious or interesting, took it upon himself to call out Texas A&M for its recruiting class and NIL practices in an event in Birmingham last Wednesday night. He seemed visibly salty that the Crimson Tide finished second to Texas A&M in the recruiting rankings and claimed NIL was ruining parity in college football.
“A&M bought every player on their team,” Saban said. “Made a deal for name, image and likeness. We didn’t buy one player. Aight? But I don’t know if we’re going to be able to sustain that in the future, because more and more people are doing it. It’s tough.”
Less than 24 hours later, Jimbo Fisher — whose boss is Ross Bjork, not that that has any significance or relevance. I’m just one man stating facts :) — called a press conference to react to the comments.
Fisher called Saban a narcissist, and implored the media to dig into his past, among a handful of other headline-grabbing comments. I have a lot of thoughts on this. I suppose I’ll just list them in order.
I think Nick Saban’s gripe is a legitimate one shared by most in the coaching industry. These coaches are control freaks by nature and the ecosystem in which they work has been altered to give them less control. Naturally, that makes them mad. But Saban is the wrong messenger. It’d be like O.J. Simpson complaining about due process or the New York Yankees bemoaning the lack of a salary cap in baseball. Both can be legitimate grievances, but lose legitimacy when considering the messenger. Really? Nick Saban is complaining about a lack of parity in a sport that he’s dominated for two decades, a sport that never had any real parity to begin with? That Nick Saban? The one who’s routinely taken action behind the scenes to ensure there is no parity in the sport? I do not need to hear that. No thank you.
I am also not surprised by Saban’s displeasure. It’s human nature to loathe change, particularly when you’ve benefitted from the current set up. Saban’s reaction is typical of a man losing his stronghold on a sport and industry he grabbed by the balls. He had a pretty sweet deal rolling for nearly two decades. Now, he realizes NIL has created a disadvantage for him because Alabama doesn’t have as deep of pockets as Texas A&M does and he’s cranky about it. I imagine I am like most of you when I say this: cry me a river, dude.
But, again, that doesn’t make Saban’s gripe illegitimate. The current ecosystem of college football is completely unsustainable. The NFL has a salary cap and a free agency window for a reason. At its core, those guard rails to maintain law and order. College football, on the other hand, is now a lawless abyss. There are no real rules anymore. Vague, varying and unenforceable state legislation are the only guidelines governing this circus. I don’t believe anyone that acknowledges this is an anti-player, anti-free market asshole. It’s simply the sport’s reality, and it’s due to incompetent leadership who, over the last decade, refused to address the inevitable until it became reality. It’s why I have written repeatedly that, while no one is going to feel sympathy for Mark Emmert, his last-ditch pleas to congress last summer to step in and legislate NIL weren’t meritless. But Emmert, a highly-paid buffoon, sat on his hands for years, denied the imminent and watched the problem snowball into the very one that forced him to sit on Capitol Hill last summer and plead helplessness to a bunch of empty suits who know next to nothing about sports.
Regarding Fisher’s comments, it’s now abundantly clear he comes from the Bjork School of Public Relations. This phenomenon didn’t begin last week. Remember when Lane Kiffin prodded Fisher in February and coaxed the infamous ‘sliced bread’ press conference? In a way, Kiffin and Saban are poking the spastic sibling to chuckle at the reaction.
I mean, the irony of calling an impromptu press conference to call someone else a narcissist is hysterical to me. Fisher adamantly denied any wrongdoing by his program. Hell, I am surprised we didn’t hear a “If you have facts about a violation, please email WeAreTotallyNotAcult@TAMU.edu, otherwise please don’t slander these young men and their families,” line.
That’s all well and good, Jimbo. The only issue is that no one accused A&M of breaking any rules. Saban, under the guise of vague wording, complained about Texas A&M having a unfair advantage. He didn’t say anyone cheated. But Fisher, like most all of these paranoid millionaires that roam SEC sidelines each fall, is so programed to lie and treat the public like they’re morons, immediately denied wrongdoing without an accusation. In a matter of 90 seconds in this clown show of a press conference, Fisher claimed to know nothing about Texas A&M’s NIL collectives while also assuring everyone said collectives did everything by the book. How does that jive?
“I don’t have any drugs, officer. But if you find any, I guarantee they are legal.”
Jimbo Fisher tells San Antonio TV station that only one of Texas A&M’s 11 early enrollees has an NIL deal. When asked why Aggies are “so good” at NIL, Fisher simply responds, “We’re not.”These coaches have become so programmed to lie, now that the main thing they’ve had to lie about is basically legal, their brains have yet to process the idea that they don’t have to feed us all a load of crap publicly anymore. Look, I get that Fisher cannot hop in front of a mic and say ‘hell yeah, we paid everyone. Come to College Station and get rich.’ But there is a lot of real estate between that stance and insulting everyone’s intelligence by acting like NIL is not a factor in Texas A&M signing the most talent it has in program history. Maybe Fisher is right, though. All of these 5-star recruits just love the midnight yell and the ring dunk ceremony. There’s room to embrace having the upper hand when it comes to NIL, but it requires nuance and an understanding of public relations that Fisher and his boss clearly don’t have. I am halfway surprised this infamous, cringeworthy and unnecessary presser — Fisher’s second in five months — didn’t include Bjork and Fisher in matching jackets and ties clamoring about their eagerness to tell their side of the story.
Lastly, I’ll leave you with a thought of positivity. If you were convinced Nick Saban wasn’t slowing down anytime soon and was nowhere near retirement, I sort of fell in line with your thinking. But now, the 70-year-old titan within his industry has proverbially stepped in the sh*t in terms of his comments and is clearly displeased with the direction of the sport. Across the industry, you’re seeing coaches flee for professional football, television or early retirement in at rates we’ve never seen before. It’s due to the unsustainable calendar and workload of college football fueled by the transfer portal and NIL. Is it naïve to think Saban is immune to that? He’s clearly dissatisfied with there things are headed, what does he have to gain by playing the long game and waiting for stability? He’s 70. Hypothetically speaking, if we learned 18 months ago that Saban wanted to coach seven more years, what are the odds that number is now less than two, given his comments, uncharacteristic PR gaffes and clear frustration with the sport as a whole? The thought is worth pondering.
On the horizon
Loaded week of baseball pods and newsletters
Mailbag Friday
Selection Show reaction a week from today.
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 smashing he subscribe button below. It is free.