Parham: Ole Miss has a problem, but it's not the transfer portal

The season started with an uncharacteristic misstep from the marketing department.

Back in February, Ole Miss released a video of team captain Reagan Burford wearing his letterman jacket and saying, “The standard hasn’t changed, but we have,” referring to the new year and leaving 2023 and the 6-24 conference record behind.

It inadvertently and unfairly made Buford the poster child for the poor results that followed. His peers named him team captain. He loves the school and the program, and he has matured and grown over the course of his story in Oxford. He didn’t ask to be put in that spotlight.

That it was necessary is part of the problem.

The Rebels just wrapped up 2024 with a 27-29 overall record and 11-19 SEC slate that also included losses to Mississippi State in the Governor’s Cup and the SEC Tournament, the latter ending their season with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth.

Burford and fifth-year pitcher Mitch Murrell are the team captains. Burford, who signed with Ole Miss out of high school before returning after a season in junior college, had the 12th-most plate appearances on the team. Murrell threw the 12th-most innings out of the pitching staff.

They were the older players, the respected players, but they simply didn’t play enough to be the primary leaders. They were the only options, though. The roster shows a lack of development and retention with the older players, forcing younger or newer players to transition seamlessly to the SEC.

The lack of older players also hurts chemistry and culture, as there isn’t a nucleus for the newcomers to cling to as far as a road map. Instead, it can get aimless, even with the best of intentions, as players gel and coexist with their different previous experiences or lack of experiences.

This isn’t saying there were locker room issues. I have no idea, and that’s not what I mean. It’s not an optimal roster makeup, on the field and off the field, and it’s one of the reasons Ole Miss finished under .500 for the second straight season.

Offensively, the focus since those players in theory play every day, first-year players had 1,348 plate appearances this season. Second-year players had 774 plate appearances and third-year players had 103 plate appearances. There wasn’t a fourth-year player with at-bats.

First-year players accounted for 60 percent of plate appearances, and second-year players made up 35 percent of plate appearances.

The portal should be a supplement and not a primary method of roster building, but the additions — in an effort to repair things from last season — made up a large portion of the plate appearances: 1,173 which is 53 percent. Only Ethan Groff wasn’t a first-year portal player in that statistic.

Junior college signees added 352 plate appearances (16 percent), though Ethan Lege missed the last three weekends of the season.

High school signees had 700 plate appearances or 31 percent. Burford is in the high school category since he signed then, even though he’s technically a JUCO addition. Will Furniss is the only veteran high school signee to show considerable offensive improvement.

Compare that to 2022, when Ole Miss won the national title. The top 10 players in plate appearances were high school signees, and all but one of those were multi-year players.Only 258 plate appearances came from non-high school signees.

It’s a new era. Portal additions are going to be more common, but it’s not the way to win in the SEC if it’s the main roster construction. LSU added Tommy White and Paul Skenes in 2023, but that was a collection of home-grown Tigers around them.

It’s also not a coincidence Ole Miss’ best portal players in relation to expectations came from major conferences. Andrew Fischer eclipsed the 20 home run mark and was a valuable piece in the middle of the order. Luke Hill, from Arizona State, played a serviceable second base and was one of Ole Miss’ best hitters in SEC play.

Grabbing players from smaller conferences can work and be effective. Liam Doyle was a quality starter from Coastal Carolina, but the hit rate is smaller, and it takes evaluation excellence to know when it’s the player and not the level that is leading to the stats.

Banks Tolley left Ole Miss because he couldn’t get on the field for Appalachian State and has 25 home runs for the Mountaineers. It’s likely the Rebels or any SEC team signs a player with his stats or worse stats and expects the hitter to translate to the nation’s toughest conference.

Sometimes they do. Maybe Tolley would, maybe Ole Miss didn't get the most out of him. Beats me. But for every Sonny DiChara, there are many more who can’t replicate the success and don’t live up to the hope or the NIL number.

Athletics director Keith Carter is meeting with head coach Mike Bianco as early as today. My guess is Bianco is back in 2025, in a not-insignificant part because of the finances involved on all fronts, but Carter would be best served to get answers on why the future is better moving forward.

That answer has to be geared toward evaluation and development.

Ole Miss doesn’t have a portal problem. It has a problem because it needs the portal so much.