The college baseball season begins in a week, with Ole Miss opening at home against Delaware. The Rebels will commemorate the 2022 national championship throughout the weekend, and we’ll get our first game-action looks at the current team.

This is the debut of the Friday Five, a content item that will run throughout baseball season — and potentially beyond that — as I set up the weekend and talk about whatever is on my mind. It won’t be all baseball, but considering the time of year, baseball will obviously occupy plenty of space.

Speaking of that first weekend, on Friday, there’s a pregame ceremony and a mini national championship trophy giveaway to the first 1,000 fans. Tim Elko will throw out the first pitch. The first 1,000 fans on Saturday and Sunday will get a national championship T-shirt and an Ole Miss koozie, respectively.

SEC coaches chose the preseason All-SEC teams on Friday, and Jacob Gonzalez was the Rebels’ lone representative. Gonzalez at first team shortstop was a guarantee, and I have no issue with most of the list. It’s a talented, deep league with a lot of firepower.

I do have issue with Hunter Elliott’s absence, however. Caveat: The list means next to nothing and is only a discussion topic. It won’t decide a thing once a pitch is thrown.

Tennessee’s Chase Dollander and Chase Burns were the two first team starting pitchers, and the second team starting pitchers were Vanderbilt’s Carter Holton, Florida’s Hurston Waldrep and LSU’s Paul Skenes. Waldrep transferred from Southern Miss, and Skenes went to Baton Rouge from Air Force. The numbers for all those players are below.

Chase Dollander - 2.39 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, 79 IP, 108 Ks, 13 BBs, .175 BAA

Chase Burns - 2.91 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, 80.1 IP, 103 Ks, 25 BBs, .216 BAA

Carter Holton - 3.14 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 80.1 IP, 97 Ks, 29 BBs, .192 BAA

Hurston Waldrep (Southern Miss) - 3.20 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 90 IP, 140 Ks, 33 BBs, .213 BAA

Paul Skenes (Air Force) - 2.73 ERA 1.17 WHIP, 85.2 IP, 96 Ks, 30 BBs, .224 BAA

Meanwhile, here’s Elliott’s stat line.

Hunter Elliott - 2.70 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 80 IP, 102 Ks, 34 BBs, .201 BAA

Elliott, of the six players listed, has the second best ERA, fourth best WHIP, basically the same inning total outside of Waldrep, fourth most strikeouts and third best batting average against. He does have the most walks of the group.

The rising sophomore, for whatever it’s worth, allowed four earned runs in 25.1 NCAA Tournament innings and started the national championship clincher. All the options are talented with cases to make the list, but there should be some benefit to the player who did it against the SEC versus Conference USA the Mountain West as it pertains to Waldrep and Skenes, respectively.

Dollander is the only no-brainer for me, and I think the others could be thrown in a hat to some degree. Elliott, though, has more of a case to be included alongside Dollander than he does to be the one left off completely.

While I’m pointing out the mistakes of the 14 league coaches, Tennessee not getting a vote to win the league is odd. The Volunteers got 12 of 14 votes to win the SEC East, but they should be the favorite to win the overall title. LSU got 11 votes and Texas A&M, Florida and Ole Miss each got one vote.

Tennessee has the best pitching rotation in college baseball, and the Volunteers will be plenty good offensively again. As much as Tony Vitello’s club rubs many the wrong way with its antics, the Vols have done a good job developing talent and acquiring transfers.

I’m not saying they are the best team in the SEC. They aren’t the overall most talented team in the league. They are, however, the best team in the SEC East, and that’s the thing the coaches missed here.

Tennessee gets to play Missouri, Kentucky, South Carolina and Georgia (the latter two could be regional teams but neither is elite) and the Vols also draw MSU, which is picked last in its division, from the West.

The schedule is still a meat grinder with Florida, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, A&M and LSU present, but Alabama and Auburn are better than Georgia and South Carolina on paper.

The West is going to be as good as any year, and when the brawl ends, it’s hard to see the winner with some gaudy record. Tennessee, though, can use the softer slate to outpace the West demolition in the regular season.

A good thought exercise each year is to figure out whose stats on a particular team would give you the best glimpse into what happens for the season. Brian Rippee and I discussed that earlier in the week, on an podcast you can listen to below, and the answer, for us at least, was obvious.

Jack Dougherty is the swing piece of the Ole Miss pitching staff. He started and relieved last season and was exception in the back half of the year, including the game one of the national championship when he retired the first 15 Oklahoma batters of the game.

He allowed two earned runs in his final 16.2 innings in 2022, spread over six appearances. Ole Miss’ coaching staff says Dougherty has improved his secondary pitches and added a tick to his fastball. The junior could potentially fill any role, and where he ultimately lands should tell us a lot about the pitching staff.

Dougherty likely would be one of Ole Miss’ three best starters, but without Josh Mallitz and Riley Maddox in the bullpen because of arm injuries, the best team move is likely to have him close games.

“If we’re playing Delaware and Elliott comes out in the sixth or seventh inning, you can bring Jack in and the game is over,” Ole Miss pitching coach Carl Lafferty said. “His stuff has gone to a different level.”

If Dougherty sticks in the bullpen, it means Ole Miss has enough starting pitching behind Elliott with Grayson Saunier, Xavier Rivas or other options. If Dougherty ends up starting in the meat of the season, something didn’t go as planned and the Rebels could have bullpen issues.

There are always surprises and things not going to script, but as of right now, Dougherty’s longterm role is likely a glimpse into the rest of the pitching staff.

Mike Bianco, sometime this season, will pass his mentor, Skip Bertman, for the second most SEC wins in conference history. After that, from a record book standpoint, it’s about longevity and holding off two other active coaches.

Bertman won 870 games as LSU’s head coach and five national titles. Bianco was a coach at LSU for three of those titles and also played for Bertman. Bianco enters 2023 with 854 wins at Ole Miss, not counting the 100 he won in three seasons at McNeese State.

Ron Polk, who coached at Mississippi State and Georgia, holds the conference record at 1,218 wins. If Bianco averaged 40 wins per season, it would take just more than nine seasons to catch Polk’s total.

Passing Bertman will obviously be significant for Bianco on a number of levels, and Bianco is only 55 years old, though he’s told me he doesn’t plan to coach into his 70s.

Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin and Arkansas’ Dave Van Horn are also in this race for coaching wins. Corbin has 840 wins, just 14 fewer than Bianco, and Van Horn is at 796 wins with the Razorbacks. Van Horn and Cobin are 62 years old and 61 years old, respectively.

Bianco has already put together a hall of fame career, cemented by the national title last summer. He’s been as consistent in the regular season as anyone in the country. I don’t know if he does this long enough to catch Polk but passing Bertman is a big deal and he is in good position to outlast Van Horn and Corbin by the time they are all finished.

This last one is a little self indulgent, but the plan is to recommend sometime with the final spot each week — whether it be a book, movie, podcast or product that I like and use often. Honestly, it’s forcing me to consume more media and stay better up to date with pop culture. That’s a good thing for the podcast and for interaction with all of you.

I’ve mentioned this in other spaces, but after avoiding audiobooks for my entire adult life, I’ve really gotten into them lately. I had a free Audible credit and gave it a chance. It has to be self help or nonfiction, as I still read if it’s fiction, but good audiobooks are replacing some of my podcast listening time.

[From The Forums: What are you currently reading?]

The one that got me in this direction was Marshall Goldsmith’s What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. I’ve read or listened to several of Goldsmith’s books, and this one was a good one to shake the cobwebs off my habits and routines under the premise that even if some things have worked, it doesn’t mean they will always work.

It’s an easy listen, and like most self help, the list of advice items isn’t anything cutting edge, but all together it did a good job of giving me things to think about and ways to adjust what I do moving forward.

it’s built around executives in a corporate structure, but he does a good job making most of the points more general in ways that can be adapted to most situations. It’s worth a listen.