'We never stopped fighting': how the greatest Ole Miss team in history took flight
The unwavering belief that powered the Rebels to a national championship
Confetti rained down on the pitcher’s mound at Charles Schwab Field on Sunday afternoon, commencing a celebration of epic proportions.
The source of the commotion was a dogpile, as the greatest Ole Miss baseball team in history gathered together on a field of play one final time. Hugs were exchanged as shouts of ‘we f**king did it’ rang out in the initial moments of elation that follow the culmination of a championship.
The Rebels’ 4-2 win over the Oklahoma Sooners to sweep the College World Series final was the apex of a journey authored by a team that once teetered on the brink of self-destruction, but maintained an unwavering conviction that it would ascend to the pinnacle of the sport despite all obstacles.
“We believed this entire year,” Tim Elko said. “ We overcame so much. What an unbelievable story.”
This confounding yet gifted group will be remembered for its unprecedented accomplishment in the face of what was nearly an unrivaled failure that would’ve ended the tenure of a 22-year head coach who built the program from the ground up. This Ole Miss team soared to heights never reached in program history after stooping to lows never seen in the Mike Bianco era.
On May 1, the Rebels left Fayetteville Arkansas with a 7-14 SEC record — the worst mark ever by a Bianco team. A smoke-and-mirrors offense was inexplicably sputtering, routinely letting down a rejuvenated pitching staff that was the primary source of the team’s woes for the first 30 games of the season. The 6-3 walk-off loss that Saturday night in Fayetteville — a game in which the Rebels trailed 3-2 after six innings, put a combined seven men on base with no outs in the final three frames, and only produced a single run — was arguably the most frustrating loss of the Rebels’ season and underscored the worst qualities of a flawed offense that was supposed to be one of the fiercest in the sport. Ole Miss left Fayetteville three losses away from eliminating itself from a potential at-large NCAA Tournament birth and an underdog to even make the SEC Tournament in Hoover. Given the expectations bestowed upon this team before the season, this position felt unimaginable.
How could a team with such lofty expectations — one that flew too close to the sun early in the year, all the way to a No. 1 ranking that was largely fueled by a weak non-conference schedule and lofty preseason expectations — fall so far so fast? Was this really how the Bianco era was going to end?
What makes this journey and this team so remarkable is that they were the inverse of a typical Bianco team and the polar opposite of what fans were accustomed to. The best Bianco-era teams are usually built on elite top-end starting pitching, a strong middle of the lineup a formidable back end of the bullpen. You could argue Ole Miss had a strong middle-of-the-lineup, but it didn’t prove to be consequential until late May. The starting pitching was so perplexing and so unsustainable for the first seven weeks of the season, Bianco, a 25-year head coach, abandoned the concept of starting pitching altogether.
After decades of regular-season excellence and postseason heartbreak, this team literally flipped the script. Ole Miss had never won a road regional in the Mike Bianco era, nor had it closed out a Super Regional in two games. The program was 1-8 in games to get to Omaha. In a way, this team was a collection of Rebels in the truest most frustrating yet rewarding sense of the term. On its route to a title, Ole Miss defeated the last two programs that had knocked it out of the NCAA Tournament in 2019 and 2021. The Rebels toppled Arkansas — a rival that’s been a bit of a thorn in Ole Miss’ side — twice in four days.
“Life is tough. Bad things happen to everybody, bad things happen to good people,” Bianco said. “This group showed a lot of people that you can fall down and you can fail, but that doesn’t mean you are a failure. You can get back up. Those guys have lived that this season. They continued to believe in one another.”
It’s hard to pinpoint one single thing that turned the tide and sparked this ascent. Dylan DeLucia and Hunter Elliott blossoming into stars was certainly an ingredient. Getting Kevin Graham, who missed over a month with a hand injury, healthy and back into the lineup definitely helped. Maybe the rest was an underachieving team finally realizing its potential.
Or, maybe, it was something less tangible.
Mike Bianco has a former player speak to the team before every home series. After Ole Miss left Fayetteville and prepared to host a bad Missouri team as its season hung on life support, former Major Leaguer, 2016 World Series Champion and Ole Miss great Chris Coghlan addressed the club prior to the series. Coghlan challenged the embattled Rebels to remain together, to not flinch in the face of adversity and to continue its pursuit of the goals set before the season, no matter how bleak or unrealistic achieving them seemed.
“He challenged the guys,” Bianco said. “Don’t you dare change your goals. Don’t hope to get to the SEC Tournament or into the NCAA Tournament. He challenged them to not even just hope to get to Omaha. He told them their job is to win the National Championship. That was your goal. Why would you let someone talk you out of your goals.”
As impossible as it seemed at that moment, the men listening to the challenge proved that to be prophetic.
Again, the reason for the turnaround was a combination of a lot of things, but perhaps the common thread that strung all of them together was the belief Elko exclaimed in the greatest moment of his college career.
“We never stopped fighting,” Elko said. “Now, we are national champs.”
Ole Miss swept Missouri in Oxford that weekend to keep its slim postseason hopes alive. An 8-2 finish to the regular season that included a historic sweep at LSU and a road win at Southern Miss was required just to earn the title of being the last team awarded a bid into the NCAA Tournament. Ole Miss sweated it out on Selection Monday. Some believe they caught a fortunate break getting in over N.C. State. Whether it was simply the metrics or a little help from a rival athletic director that got the Rebels into the NCAA Tournament, they got one final opportunity.
A team that seemed destined to be remembered for letting opportunity pass it by made the most of it when given one final breath of life — and did so in dominating fashion.
Ole Miss’ run through the 2022 postseason was dominant and overpowering. The Rebels outscored opponents 82-25. The bullpen pitched 20 scoreless innings before allowing an earned run. DeLucia and Elliott overpowered opposing lineups and outdueled the best opponents had to offer on the mound. The offense was resilient and continuously put pressure on quality pitchers, eventually pummeling them into submission. The Rebels’ perceived kryptonite was quality left-handed arms. They defeated Miami ace Carson Palmquist and Oklahoma anchor Jake Bennett. They tore through the Hattiesburg Super Regional by pouring 15 runs on the likes of Hunter Waldrep, Tanner Hall and a Golden Eagles pitching staff that served as the backbone of one of the greatest teams in the program’s history. Ole Miss recorded double-digit hits in seven of the 11 postseason contests and out-hit opponents in 10 of the 11 games. The best version of this team proved to be more dominant than initially thought, even if it took them four months to prove it true.
This successful pursuit of a championship was fueled by star power. DeLucia allowed one earned run over his final three starts that spanned 22 innings. He did not walk a batter in Omaha and recorded 38 strikeouts to just three walks in the postseason. He was rightfully awarded the Most Outstanding Player of the College World Series. His fellow stars didn’t lag far behind. Elliott allowed six earned runs over 32.2 innings. The true freshman delivered his three best performances in succession as the stage got progressively larger.
Elko hit five home runs in the postseason and drove in 14 runs as he evolved from a terrific hitter with a fine story of perseverance into an undisputed legend that repeatedly fielded questions about his own statue. Justin Bench smacked 18 postseason hits, including the one in the eighth inning on Sunday that helped fuel the rally that clinched the title. Bench scored the game-deciding run. He recorded six multi-hit performances in 11 postseason games. Jacob Gonzalez drove in the first two runs on Sunday, including depositing a first-pitch slider into right field to plate T.J. McCants to tie the game.
The list of moments could go on and on.
This title was also won by the ‘other guys’ that rounded out what became an invincible unit. Ole Miss’ season likely ends in the first week of June if not for Peyton Chatagnier’s late-inning, 4-RBI explosion in the first game against Arizona. Calvin Harris had 13 postseason hits, including five in the first two games of the College World Series. McCants blew the first game of the final open with a two-run shot to right field. John Gaddis pitched five quality innings in a Wednesday loss to Arkansas and recorded four crucial outs on Sunday to keep the score at 2-1 in favor of Oklahoma, and ultimately bridged the game to Brandon Johnson. Mason Nichols didn’t allow a run in eight postseason innings. Jack Dougherty, who had not started a game since March, pitched five innings of two-run ball in game one of the championship series to set Ole Miss up for a win.
All of these guys overcame their own individual obstacles, which couldn’t have been done without sharing the unwavering belief Elko spoke about as the Rebels hoisted the sport’s most coveted trophy. After participating in every game since he set foot on campus in 2020 and starting all but two, Chatagnier was benched at Kentucky in March, mired in a brutal slump. He never let it affect his defense or ‘give a shit’ level that this team desperately needed at times. Harris overcame a hand injury that cost him three weeks in March and derailed a torrid start to the year at the plate. He started just two of the previous nine games before being inserted into the lineup in the regional final.
Gaddis, a Texas A&M Corpus Christi transfer who deferred medical school for a year to be a weekend starter on a team with championship aspirations, was pulled from the rotation in March, endured an appendectomy in April, and a four-game suspension that leaked into the postseason for throwing at a chirpy Texas A&M hitter in the final regular-season series. McCants overcame a multi-faceted struggle of a sophomore season that saw him slump at the plate to deliver two of the biggest hits of the College World Series, including a leadoff single in that Sunday 8th inning against Oklahoma that will be remembered for generations. Even Gonzalez persevered through a tough individual week in Omaha to deliver in the most crucial moment of the season.
The Rebels were nothing if not resilient on this remarkable ride. They entered the postseason not having erased a deficit after six innings. They did just that three times in the 2022 postseason.
The scene after the game was a coronation of a worthy champion.
It was also a validation of a lot of things.
It was a validation of the program Bianco has built. He’s endured harsh criticisms, both fair and unfair, for past postseason failures despite being a model of consistency in the regular season, in the toughest conference in America, at a place without scholarship advantages. If this season had fizzled out in the two weeks after this team left Arkansas at 7-14, a change in leadership would’ve been understandable. But that doesn’t mean it would’ve just. Bianco’s built an elite program, one worthy of a national title. In a way, he was a victim of his own success. With the money poured into the program, a stadium that’s expanded to the point of being unrecognizable compared to when he took over and regular-season success that became a yearly expectation, the postseason disappointment — while a valid black eye on an otherwise pristine resumé — distorted perception of the totality of what he’s built.
Bianco embraced his wife, Camie, near the third-base line as his kids looked on waiting for their chance to hug their dad. Twenty-two years in charge of any major college program is a long time — a lifetime for his five kids. No one endured more for that moment more than the man wearing a Gatorade-soaked No. 5 uniform, as well as those closest to him.
Sunday was also a validation of the sweat equity put in by the more than 20,000 Ole Miss fans that lined the confines of Charles Schwab Field on Saturday and the thousands more that watched from elsewhere. They packed the stands for the entire week, especially the championship series. There’s no doubt it had an effect on an Oklahoma team that looked as if it succumbed to the stage in both of the two losses. Whether it was the pair of wild pitches that plated the final two runs on Sunday or the Sooners All-American shortstop Peyton Graham booting a ball in a tone-setting first inning on Saturday, Oklahoma had never been the hunted in an environment that raucous.
“It sounded like a football game,” Bianco said after Saturday’s game one win. “Swayze gets loud, but not like that.”
Sunday was a validation Bianco’s work, this team’s resilience and a fan base that bought into the most consistent winner on campus over the last two decades.
The scene in the stands could only be described as euphoric. There were a lot of hugs, embraces and even some tears. In unforgettable moments like that, fans tend to remember where they were, who they were with and who they so badly wish could’ve been there to see it more so than the minute details of an inning or game. That’s why the 2022 Ole Miss Rebels are now an immortal group of legends. Everyone watching will take that memory to their grave.
“There are a lot of people that have fallen in love with this story and these guys,” Bianco said. “I am just thankful to have been a part of it.”
After the dogpile dispersed, Ole Miss took a lap around the stadium, interacting with the crowd. It was the first of many celebrations for this cherished group. On Wednesday, there will be a parade that will proceed down Lamar Avenue, through the Square and culminate at the Ford Center. It’ll be a celebration 22 years in the making.
A party at a school that claims to never have lost one, cultivated by a belief that once seemed delusional, that could’ve only been maintained by the men at the center of it.
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Chills Rippee. You gave them to me again while reading this. What a run. Thanks for all the hours spent covering this team. This season. One I will never forget. You, Neal and Chase never let us down with content even when the losses piled up and the days between games sucked. Even my wife has become accustomed to listening to yall during road trips now. I wouldn’t trade It for anything. Thanks again