OXFORD | Mike Bianco might be a new man when it comes to defensive positioning for his Rebels.

Ole Miss opens its national title defense on February 17 against Delaware, and the head coach entering his 23rd season in Oxford is considering using the shift for the first time. More and more teams around the country have incorporated it in recent seasons, and the Rebels experimented with it in the fall.

The shift — typically adding defenders to a hitter’s pull side — has become a primary part of Major League Baseball over the previous seven seasons, and that league is now banning the shift, stating that all four infielders will now be required to have both feet in the infield and two infielders will be required to be on either side of second base when the pitch is delivered.

That rule change in professional baseball is partly why Bianco is more interested in utilizing it at times. Here’s his full response about his mindset change:

“We’re gonna shift. I was convinced. We talked about it and one of the things — and it’s kind of odd — that convinced me is if Major League Baseball is thinking about changing the rules, because it makes a difference then maybe we should do that. There’s no doubt when you watch it. In college or MLB, it makes a difference.

“What kept me from doing it is when we play Delaware, and we’re facing a kid that’s never batted or had 27 at-bats, but we talk aboiut how a kid changes over time, how do we change what we’ve done for 150 years of baseball and this is where Abner Doubleday put them, we’re putting them somewhere else? I get it in professional baseball when they get 500 at-bats. They’ve been in minor leagues for four years and that’s 2,000 at-bats. You can look back at the information and say, ‘Hey, II know he’s a rookie but in 2,000 at-bats in the minor leagues, this is where he hit the ball.’

“I understand that and believe that. I just think do we have the information” I’ve been convinced. We won’t be super crazy with it, and there are times we’ll play normal straight up baseball and times we’ll shift.

“The things that are more difficult for us are the play situation when you shift. It’s not which player you should shift on and where to position, but who covers second and third? How do we get a guy there and who backs up? These are things none of us, even as coaches, were taught or learned. It’s different baseball. We’ve had to learn on the fly.

“Hey Chase you have to back up this throw and then as we talk about it more in the dugout during an intrasquad game, we see no it’s not good if you do it, Parrish, you do it and back up that throw. It’s just unorthodox and is a different way to play the game.

“Some of the ways we defend after the ball is hit, if it’s a single and a guy is going first to third, where are the people running? I’m more worried about that than shifting or not. We’re going to shift and a guy is going to hit it where we would have been playing in regular playing and vice versa, we didn’t shift on this guy and this is going to happen. But hopefully not more times than not.”