Here we go again is the feeling around town for a lot of fans.
Ole Miss dropped a one-and-done game at the SEC Tournament to last-place Missouri, a team that had no business being the one to send the Rebels packing.
Before the dust even settled in Hoover, somebody was already digging through Mike Bianco’s contract structure.
Nothing wrong with doing it and to my knowledge, nobody has said it should be done. Chase Parham over at Inside the Rebels was just bringing it up because folks are just raising the question. That’s how fast this stuff moves these days.
There’s not really a lot of other things to talk about that gets debated. That puts Bianco in a seat that gets a little warm over failing to meet expectations.
The Rebs lost 10-8 to Missouri. They gave up a five-run lead, fought their way back to tie it in the seventh and then watched two runs cross the plate in the eighth they couldn’t answer.
It’s a loss that hurts worse because of who delivered it. Missouri finished last in the SEC. That’s not a typo.
Now Ole Miss is 36-21 and hitting the road for the NCAA Tournament rather than rolling out the welcome mat in Oxford. The host possibility is gone. The conversation has already shifted.
Contract Numbers Folks Talking About
If you want to understand why fans are grinding their teeth right now, take a look at where things stand financially.
Bianco’s current deal runs through 2028 at $1.625 million annually, which at the time it was signed after the 2022 national championship made him the second-highest paid college baseball coach in the country.
He was behind only Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin and was first among coaches at public schools.
People are conveniently skipping past those details when they start sharpening pitchforks.
He’s now sixth in the SEC and eighth nationally. LSU’s Jay Johnson is at the top nationally at $3.35 million per year.
The market moved while Bianco’s pay stayed put.
Here’s the part that matters right now for the contract conversation. Bianco doesn’t earn a single dollar in bonus money just for getting his team into the NCAA Tournament.
Not one cent. His raises and one-time bonuses don’t kick in until the super regional round.
That’s $35,000 added to his annual salary for a super regional appearance and $15,000 as a one-time payment for playing in one.
Everything else, the College World Series bump of $100,000 to his annual pay and the $50,000 annual raise for getting to Omaha, requires advancing deep into the postseason.
So the hot seat crowd needs to do the math before they start screaming. The program isn’t in crisis mode financially because Ole Miss fell to Missouri in the SEC Tournament opener.
Buyout Is Number That Actually Matters
If Ole Miss decided to move on from Bianco right now — with two years left on his deal after this season — it’d cost the school roughly $2.925 million.
That’s 90 percent of his remaining salary paid out in quarterly installments of about $365,000 over two years.
There’s no mitigation clause either, meaning Bianco doesn’t have to go find another job to reduce what Ole Miss owes him.
He could walk out the door tomorrow for another program and wouldn’t owe the Rebels a penny. The financial leverage sits entirely on the school’s side if it wants to keep him and entirely on his side if he decides to leave.
The number isn’t outrageous for a program that wins at the level Ole Miss usually does, but it’s also not the kind of check a school writes casually.
You’d better be real sure of what you’re doing before you cut it.
Before You Run Bianco Out of Town, Answer One Question
This is where I get on my soapbox and I don’t apologize for it.
Before anybody at Ole Miss seriously entertains the idea of moving on from a coach who’s been there for 26 years and delivered a national championship in 2022, somebody needs to answer one very simple question.
Who are you replacing him with? Athletic director Keith Carter may have an idea in the back of his head but it’s probably not something he’s staying up to worry about.
That’s not a rhetorical question. That’s the only question that matters.
You don’t just stumble into the next Mike Bianco. The man is closing in on 1,000 wins as the Ole Miss head coach — he’s at 985 right now — and he’s taken the Rebs to 19 regionals in 24 completed seasons with eight super regional trips and two College World Series appearances.
He won the whole thing just a few years ago. You don’t just pluck someone off a shelf who’s going to walk in and match that resume.
And if you think Tennessee’s situation this year isn’t a cautionary tale about what happens when you lose a championship-caliber coach, you haven’t been paying attention.
That program is figuring out exactly how hard it is to replace someone who built something.
Sometimes the grass isn’t greener. Sometimes it’s a dirt infield with a busted sprinkler.
Road Doesn’t Scare This Program, But It Should Give Pause
Here’s what the Rebels do have going for them heading into the NCAA regional: Ole Miss is currently No. 15 in the RPI, which should put it among the higher two seeds in the tournament field.
All of that RPI stuff is completely foreign to me and I probably wouldn’t understand all the numbers if it was in front of me.
It does matter to the folks picking tournament teams, though.
That’s not a bad position. The selection committee assigns overall seed numbers to the two seeds and places them into pods, with teams seeded 17-20 filling the No. 2 spots in regionals hosted by teams seeded 13-16.
It’s not a straight snake draft, so any of the four teams in a pod can land at any of the four host sites.
The selection show is Monday, Memorial Day. After that, Bianco said the turnaround will feel rushed in a hurry.
There’s not actually 10 full days to prepare. Once Monday’s announcement comes, the clock moves fast.
The coaching staff will spend the time between now and then sorting out what the starting rotation needs. Hunter Elliott, Taylor Rabe and Cade Townsend were all kept on normal rest in anticipation of a longer run in Hoover.
Elliott would’ve started Wednesday against Mississippi State had the Rebels advanced.
Pitching coach Joel Mangrum and Bianco have work to do figuring out the right mix of live batting practice, rest and recovery for a roster that’s dealing with some physical wear.
Eight Road Regionals, One Super Regional Win Is Honest Ledger
Ole Miss has played eight road regionals during Bianco’s tenure and advanced out of one.
That was 2022, when the Rebs won the Coral Gables Regional and then took the Hattiesburg Super Regional on the way to Omaha and the national title.
One-for-eight on the road isn’t a record you want to hang on the wall.
That’s a legitimate conversation. It’s fair to wonder whether Bianco’s teams handle road environments as well as they should.
It’s fair to look at this season’s 36-21 record and ask whether the roster has enough to make noise in June. These are fair questions.
But dumping a coach with a national championship ring, 985 wins and two years left on his deal because of a bad loss to Missouri in May and because the road regional stat looks bad without including the one time it worked perfectly is a short-sighted reaction.
The Rebs have a chance to change that narrative starting next weekend. Nobody should be making permanent decisions based on a one-game sample in Hoover.
Outfielder Hayden Federico had it right when he said this isn’t the end of the world or the end of the season.
The team gets more time to heal pitchers’ arms and get ready to go wherever it’s sent. That’s the right way to frame it.
The wrong way to frame it is pulling out a buyout calculator before the NCAA regional bracket even starts.
