After a weekend in Houston where the ball stubbornly stayed in the yard, Judd Utermark walked back into Swayze Field on Tuesday night and reminded everyone that a homerless stretch doesn’t mean much for a guy like him.
Two swings, five RBI, and a 7-1 win over Memphis later, the conversation has already shifted back to something bigger: he’s now just 11 home runs away from the Ole Miss career record.
And the way he’s tracking, there’s no real reason to think he can’t get there.
Memphis actually struck first, scratching across a run in the opening inning, but Utermark erased that almost immediately. His first homer of the night was a no‑doubt answer in the bottom half, a quick reset that put Ole Miss ahead 2-1 and settled the whole thing into the rhythm the Rebels wanted.
Way out of the park‼️‼️‼️@JuddUtermark with the moon shot pic.twitter.com/IYcS92NZeM
— Ole Miss Baseball (@OleMissBSB) March 4, 2026
They added two more in the second on a walk and a hit‑by‑pitch, and by the time Topher Jones launched his first Ole Miss homer in the third, the game felt pretty well sorted out.
The pitching helped that feeling along. Owen Kelly gave the Rebels four steady innings, allowing just the one run and striking out five. Then Grayson Gibson came in and quietly threw the best outing of the night: four innings, no hits, no runs, five strikeouts, and his first career win. Landon Waters handled the ninth without any drama.
But this night was always going to circle back to Utermark. His second homer came in the seventh, another clean swing that pushed the lead to 7-1 and gave him his sixth multi‑homer game.
🚨Hit the batter's 👁️
Tip of the cap @JuddUtermark pic.twitter.com/s8wciWLKPO
— Ole Miss Baseball (@OleMissBSB) March 4, 2026
It also pushed him into a tie for eighth on the Ole Miss career list with 37, even with Burney Hutchinson and Stephen Head, and now just one behind Kevin Graham. The climb from here gets more interesting: 40 for Don Kessinger, 41 for Matt Smith and Matt Snyder, 46 for Tim Elko, and 48 for Kyle Gordon at the top.
Utermark sits at eight homers on the season after hitting 22 last year. He had only seven total through his first two seasons, but that came with limited starts.
Now he’s an everyday presence, a middle‑of‑the‑order anchor, and a hitter who has already shown he can stack home runs in bunches.
Eleven more isn’t some wild, record‑chasing fantasy. It’s a perfectly reasonable pace for a player who has grown into one of the most reliable power bats in the SEC.
He didn’t hit one in Houston. Fine. He hit two the moment he got home.
Ole Miss is 11-2 and back at Swayze again Wednesday night against North Alabama.
Utermark will show up, settle in, and take his swings. And at this point, it’s fair to wonder how long it’ll be before he starts making that record look small.
