Ole Miss has lost its first six games of Southeastern Conference play as it starts the series at Texas A&M at 6 p.m. on Friday.

Game two is at 7 p.m. on Saturday and the series finale is at 1 p.m. on Sunday. The Rebels had a no-contest against Southern Miss Tuesday in Pearl after field conditions caused the cancellation in the fourth inning.

Here are the things on my mind as the Rebels look for their first SEC success.

When Hunter Elliott went down with an elbow injury following the first weekend of the season, it was obvious Ole Miss would have to rely on youth instead of experience.

The Rebels only have two available pitchers who threw at least 10 innings in a Division I season last year — Jack Dougherty and Mason Nichols. Division II transfer Xavier Rivas has given Ole Miss a lift, but the young arms are still transitioning to this level of play.

The result is a staff that has only two outings out of 18 weekend starts of six innings and no starts beyond that. Mike Bianco is shaking up his rotation for the first time, shifting Rivas from Sunday to Saturday and inserting JT Quinn in Grayson Saunier’s spot.

[Related: Ole Miss shuffles weekend rotation]

Elliott is scheduled to return sometime in April, and Ole Miss is also without bullpen options Riley Maddox and Josh Mallitz. Maddox is throwing 100 percent bullpens and will possibly return this season, while Mallitz is out after having Tommy John surgery in November. Matt Parenteau is also unavailable with an elbow injury.

The injuries certainly changed the dynamics of the staff, and it’s highlighted the depth issue that’s plaguing the Rebels. Brayden Jones has a 1.42 ERA in 12.2 innings, but Mitch Murrell (4.12) and Nichols (4.73) are the only other available pitchers with double-digit innings to have ERAs under 5.

Ole Miss expects true freshmen Saunier, Quinn, Sam Tookoian and Jordan Vera to handle a heavy load — they have 12 combined starts this season not counting Tookoian’s USM start — but the group has combined to allow 62 earned runs and 52 walks in 75.2 innings. That’s a 7.28 ERA.

"They're just very, very young on the mound," Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle said. "(Elliott's injury) combined with youth is probably what they are going through. And to be honest with you, there are four elite teams in the league and we've played two of them and they've played two of them."

Outside of Murrell, the veterans haven’t jumped up in production either, and Ole Miss is feeling a couple losses from the offseason.

Florida transfer Nick Pogue committed to Ole Miss in June but unexpectedly signed a free agent contract on July 20.

Fewer than two full weeks later, Long Beach State transfer Juaron Watts-Brown committed to Oklahoma State over Ole Miss and Arkansas. All three teams had primarily focused on Watts-Brown to be a key part of their respective rotations.

D1Baseball currently lists Watts-Brown as the No. 6 starting pitcher nationally. He has a 2.97 ERA and 55 strikeouts in 33.1 innings for the Cowboys.

Most other premium transfer arms made decisions prior to Watts-Brown.

It’s difficult to pitch in the SEC as a freshman. While a lot of the focus has been on those rocky transitions for the Rebels, it’s not particularly fair to expect first-year players to perform without hiccups.

Over the course of Bianco’s 23 seasons, Saunier is only the fourth true freshman to start opening weekend. Bianco typically brings newcomers — even very talented ones — along slowly with bullpen and midweek experience. Bobby Wahl, Lance Lynn and Drew Pomeranz all began their freshmen seasons in the bullpen.

Mark Holliman, Derek Diamond and Gunnar Hoglund are the others with Saunier. Cody Satterwhite would be on that list, but the opening weekend in 2006 had a rain out.

Here’s how some of Ole Miss’ best pitchers during the Bianco era did during their freshmen seasons. It’s worth repeating I’m grabbing premium prospects and players. This is far from a list of average or serviceable players over the years. ''

I repeat this isn't really a fair list to compare to , but I think it's still noteworthy. Phillip Irwin, Scott Weathersby and plenty of others had impactful careers after pedestrian starts to their college tenures.

Texas A&M was supposed to be one of the SEC’s best offenses, but instead, on paper, this is a matchup of Ole Miss’ struggling pitching against the Aggies’ listless offense.

The Aggies had five position players on the preseason All-SEC list, but Texas A&M is 1-5 in the league — albeit after playing LSU and Tennessee — and aren’t hitting at all.

Texas A&M, in all games, is last in the SEC in batting average (.265), slugging percentage (.410), on-base percentage (.390), RBIs (162) and total bases (339). The Aggies are 13th in runs (182) and home runs (21) and 11th in doubles (45).

“Both teams obviously aren’t playing their best baseball to this point in conference play,” Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “We have two teams that are desperate to find wins. I’m looking forward to the opportunity and this is a great chance to turn our season around a little bit.”

One thing TAMU does well is walk. The Aggies are third in the SEC with 156 walks while Ole Miss is 11th in the SEC in walks as a pitching staff.

Jack Moss is hitting .347 and playing well, but the other four preseason All-SEC members have struggled.

Austin Bost is hitting .242 with a .762 OPS, Ryan Targac is hitting .174 with a .657 OPS and 34 strikeouts in 86 at-bats and Trevor Werner is hitting .200 in 17 games and 55 at-bats. He was out with an injury but returned against Tennessee.

Brett Minnich has missed the majority of the season with a broken thumb but is expected to be available this weekend. He started against Texas on Tuesday.

Ole Miss needs to keep Nathan Dettmer mediocre on Friday.

The Texas A&M frontline starter can show elite stuff and has a remarkably high upside, but he’s struggled in the three starts this season against high-major programs.

The right-hander, on the season, has a 5.40 ERA, 30 strikeouts and 14 walks in 30 innings. He’s gone at least five innings in his three most recent starts and four of his six starts this season.

Dettmer gave up six runs on four hits to Louisville in two innings, four runs on six hits in six innings to LSU and nine runs on eight hits in five innings against Tennessee.

Last season in Oxford, Ole Miss got to Dettmer for four runs on four hits in 3.2 innings. He threw three wild pitches, walked four and hit a batter. The Aggies won the game, 10-5, and took the series.

Texas A&M is throwing left-hander Justin Lamkin on Saturday and is TBA on Sunday. Lamkin has a 3.28 ERA with 31 strikeouts and nine walks.

Ole Miss, in the six SEC games, is hitting .159 against left-handed pitching and .250 against right-handed pitching.

Lamkin, a true freshman, has pitched more than 4.1 innings just once this season. His best outing of the year came against LSU. He gave up a run in 4.1 innings to the Tigers.

Ole Miss is obviously in a hole at 0-6 in the SEC.

It’s the worst start of the Bianco era and the Rebels’ worst start since beginning 0-6 in 1996 and finishing 7-23. Bianco’s worst league start after two weekends is 1-5 in 2006.

That 2006 team had a rotation issue, and it took some time to work out. The Rebels lost two of three to Vanderbilt and were swept by Alabama before sweeping Georgia in Athens to right the ship in week three.

Ole Miss finished 18-12 in the SEC, hosted a regional and super regional and finished one game short of the College World Series.

Tommy Baumgardner, Nick Hetland and Satterwhite were Ole Miss’ opening rotation, but by the meat of the SEC season, Kline, Lynn and Brett Bukvich had emerged. Ole Miss also got key innings and starts from Craig Rodriguez.

Teddy Cahill from Baseball America did us all a favor and researched SEC teams starting 0-6 since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams 23 seasons ago. Only twice has a team been swept the first two weekends and made a regional and both happened in 2001.

Florida started 0-6 but had a 14-game winning streak at one point and finished 16-14, earning a No. 2 seed in the Coral Gables Regional.

Auburn, that same season, started 0-9 after sweeps to Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Georgia, but finished 15-15 and got a No. 2 seed in Tallahassee.

SEC teams that have been swept on consecutive SEC weekends — no matter where they fall in the schedule — have made the NCAA Tournament seven times with LSU in 2021 the most recent. Those Tigers started 1-8 in league play.

Ole Miss was swept twice last season — by Alabama and Tennessee — but it wasn’t back-to-back weekends. The Rebels need to go 13-11 the rest of the way to have true postseason hopes.

Ole Miss and Mississippi State — which is 0-7 in the SEC and losers of 18 straight league games — haven’t both missed the NCAA Tournament since 2002.

The Rebels haven’t started 0-7 in the SEC since 1935.