FAYETTEVILLE | A day of bad baseball altered one legacy and added an odd chapter to another one Monday in Fayetteville.
Ole Miss, one win from the College World Series, put forth a clunker in Northwest Arkansas, struggling in all phases and succumbing to the host Razorbacks in 14-1 blowout fashion to finish its season. It was the longest postseason stay in five years and a few weeks’ worth of quality baseball, but it’s also complicated — something that has inhabited the entire program at this point.
The Rebels hosted for the third time in four seasons and somewhat erased 2018’s disastrous Monday against Tennessee Tech with a regional sweep last weekend. They showed fight and energy to extend the super regional past Sunday. There was the commendable Hoover run to get back into the hosting conversation, and the No. 1 class nationally has some positive footnotes to its reputation.
But in what has become an abundance of environment-imposed scar tissue carried from one roster to another, that class ends its run as solid and memorable but not spectacular. There’s no College World Series. There was a season without a postseason in 2017, and there’s the feeling of missed chances.
Monday with a different ending would have flipped that to a Mount Rushmore-type reputation for that junior class and this team, but instead it — fairly or not — lumps them into the category of close-but-not-enough that remains a focal point for fans and supporters in the Mike Bianco era of Ole Miss baseball.
Bianco, who is the SEC’s third winningest coach all-time, is 1-5 in super regional series. A second trip to Omaha in six years would have quieted one side of what has become a persistent stalemate between supporters admiring consistency and those who question the Groundhog nature of what has happened in the postseason.
As recently as the middle of May, there were rumblings about Bianco’s prolonged job security and whether then-athletics director Ross Bjork would consider shaking the program up because of what was one super regional in 10 seasons and a 2-6 NCAA Tournament record since 2015. Bjork is starting the same position at Texas A&M in early July, and that super regional stat was doubled in Fayetteville along with the first regional victory since 2014.
So, Ole Miss moves on as a quality program that is hosting more often than not and prominently competing annually in the nation’s toughest division. But it also moves on as a program that needs to get back to the sport’s biggest stage. Three teams inside the SEC West are heading to the College World Series, and the Rebels’ rival is back for the second straight year and owns a considerable recent edge in the head-to-head series.
This junior class is owed some credit for helping put the program back on solid ground following an odd 2015-2017 stretch that included zero postseason wins. Now another top-five class is on its way, and Ole Miss tries to reload for another shot at what has been elusive.
Bianco made obvious changes to his demeanor in recent weeks and coached well throughout much of the postseason, guiding the Rebels on the cusp of the College World Series. But as Monday fell to other side of the field, the program is once again dissected through the lens of nearly two decades.
Ole Miss baseball is in a good place. It’s above average, far from mediocre and a model of consistency. It’s also absent from Omaha. And with another season ending, it remains in limbo. On the micro level, it was one game on the road against a top-5 national seed. And on the macro level to some, it’s one more missed opportunity. So it goes as the strange, strange world of Ole Miss perception heads into another offseason and into year 20 of the Bianco era.
