Ole Miss is 16-6 overall and 2-1 in the SEC after a series win over South Carolina to start league play and a neutral site victory over a ranked Southern Miss Tuesday in Pearl. The Rebels now face their toughest test to date with a trip to Tennessee.

The Volunteers are 1-2 in the SEC after a series loss at Alabama but are 19-3 overall and won 17 straight before the back-to-back losses in Tuscaloosa. Tennessee leads or is near the top of the league in numerous offensive categories and is coming off an Omaha berth last season.

Every home team won at least twice last weekend to start league play. The Rebels, who have won 10 of 11 and 14 of 16, face the Vols at 5:30 p.m. Friday, 5 p.m. Saturday and noon on Sunday. All of those times are central.

Here's to another mailbag.

I haven’t looked at it from a floor or ceiling standpoint because last year blew up that exercise. Even after the opening weekend sweep at Vanderbilt, I wouldn’t have had 6-24 on my bingo card. Things snowballed in a variety of ways, and the Big Ten nonconference schedule fooled us all.

I’m consistent that the first goal is 14 SEC wins. That’s two-fold because this program needs to be back in the postseason and put last season to bed as an anomaly. Also, as 2022 showed us, just get in the tournament and see what happens.

Tennessee and Ole Miss two years ago are great proof you don’t win it in the regular season.

If the Rebels stay on target for a few more weeks, we’ll start the conversation of what the picture looks like with 15 or more SEC wins. It’s important to get at least one this weekend and then take advantage of the middle part of the schedule.

From weeks three through eight, Ole Miss faces Kentucky, at Arkansas, Mississippi State, at Georgia, Alabama and at Auburn.

Outside of the trip to Fayetteville, it’s about as good as you can get in this league if Mizzou isn’t involved. Perform well there, and there’s plenty to discuss bigger things.

Ole Miss has established a solid culture inside the clubhouse, and it’s a more cohesive, together group compared to the beginning of the season. The bullpen looks deep and strong, and the Rebels are fourth nationally in taking walks — a key statistic in offensive success.

The Rebels still have a rotation that’s a work in progress, even though it’s bolstered by the bullpen and is doing ok. Ole Miss, also, needs to improve in situational hitting. While the Rebels are top half of the league in runs scored, the lack of quality at-bats with runners on will haunt a team.

The Rebels have rebounded and should be commended for getting up after that dreadful start. Keep chipping away, and we’ll talk big picture in a few weeks.

I got several questions centered on Riley Maddox’s possible ascension into the rotation and corresponding moves associated with that possibility.

It’s a bit bizarre that Liam Doyle seems to be the one weekend starter cemented in despite only having 8.1 innings of work in starts. I think that’s accurate, though.

First, let’s look at Maddox. He started the year somewhat shaky with five walks and nine runs (six earned) in his first 8.2 innings spread across three appearances. He was throwing the sinker too hard and seemed to be struggling with leveling the adrenaline.

Since then, he’s allowed seven earned runs over 17 innings as a starter including 14 strikeouts and only two walks. Maddox is efficient, too, with 76 pitches, 68 pitches and 93 pitches during stints of five innings, six innings and six innings.

Tuesday in Pearl was critical because it was a better lineup, and he showed experience and maturity in overcoming Ole Miss’ abysmal second inning defensively. He limited the damage and then threw four straight scoreless frames. The lack of walks and ability to limit would play well on Sundays.

I’m just not sure where to put him right now because Mike Bianco isn’t going to quick hook a starter, even if metrics are trending toward a potential issue. Doyle looks like an ace through two starts, so we’re removing him from the conversation at the moment.

Gunnar Dennis is the tricky one because I’ve spent a lot of digital ink the past two weeks talking about his high WHIP and traffic on the bases, but the end result has been effective to manageable.

The JUCO transfer allowed a serviceable to solid three runs in five innings against South Carolina despite two walks, five hits and four hit batters. He gave up one run in five innings the week before versus Morehead State.

Dennis shows a lot of toughness, and he plays above his experience with runners on base. He really competes. I maintain that there are too many opportunities for one ball in the gap to change a game, but Bianco isn’t going to shift a pitcher because of down-line stats.

He’s earned the chance to maintain his position. Also, it makes Ole Miss better on Saturday if you wanted to pitch backwards with the rotation. Dennis deserves to be in the rotation. It's just where to put him. Friday is a certain kind of animal.

Saunier had given up one earned run in 14 innings before the South Carolina start. Those numbers weren’t good with nine hits and a walk leading to five earned runs in 4.1 innings.

I did think the game was weird, though, for lack of a more appropriate term. Bianco wanted him out of the game before the last of the damage, and the wind took a ball out of the park early in the game.

Ole Miss needs Saunier to have a role on this team, whatever it is, and he needs confidence wherever possible. Sunday is a big start for him in Knoxville, but last weekend wasn’t a reason to make some wholesale change.

One other thing is Maddox is winning midweek games after a bad non-league start and saving the bullpen for the weekend.

Bianco is doing the right thing with the catcher situation currently. Eli Berch has earned the majority of the weekend starts because of his defense.

Neither catcher has been proficient throwing our runners — that’s also on the pitchers — but Berch has been clearly better with his receiving. Berch has been a steadying presence back there.

Campbell Smithwick is going to be a very vital player during his career, but he has to limit the amount of wild pitches and passed balls to play consistently on the weekend. He’s done a nice job of not letting the defensive struggles affect his patience offensively.

I’d give Smithwick every midweek start and get him in the weekend games whenever it makes sense. Berch should b the primary name on the lineup sheet right now though.

I received an email a few weeks ago to settle an argument about whether Dylan DeLucia was essentially an ace during 2022. The premise was that DeLucia’s postseason success overshadowed his regular season mediocrity.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. Ole Miss doesn’t sniff the postseason if not for DeLucia. I wrote a book about it. Buy it here.

Sure, DeLucia was otherworldly in the postseason, but he allowed two or fewer runs six times — out of eight starts — in SEC play as a starter and pitched at least into the seventh inning all but once in the regular season. DeLucia was a dude.

Bianco didn’t identify him early on because he had a bad fall and didn’t pitch that well without some stakes on the outing.

Prior to that, Ole Miss had Doug Nikhazy and Gunnar Hoglund. We were cheated out of watching the best one-two Bianco’s tenure when the pandemic halted the 2020 season.

I think the lineup had a couple issues not yet noticed, but Nikhazy, Hoglund and shortstop Anthony Servideo were going to put on a clinic.

Basically the lack of an ace is a 2023 and on problem. Hunter Elliott’s injury and weird recovery timing drastically shifted both last year and this year. Ole Miss expected JT Quinn and Saunier to take an additional jump.

Also, last year didn’t really have dominant aces outside of the unicorn Paul Skenes and a couple different options.

In today’s world, development is key, and you need to go buy an ace if necessary.

Over. Stephen Head was excellent, and those bats were still rocket launchers even if they were less so than the old drop-fives. I think the projection on that was around 450-460. I'm just remembering something I heard somewhere. Maybe it's taken on tall-tale status at this point, but if so, that's ok.

The farthest I've seen hit in Oxford was Kent Matthes of Alabama to left field in 2009.

Head would be an All-America and Golden Spikes contender today. He'd have today's tools and technology and emphasis on body care and mobility. The talent would play. I know his pro career didn't go as planned, but he was crafty as a pitcher and had left-handed pop and ability to hit for average.

In today's game, he'd throw harder and be more max effort, so that would be interesting to see how it translates. Here's the absurd part: He might have a hard time in 2024 convincing the staff to let him pitch and not just hit.

I'm not going to overcomplicate this. I'd love some offensive stats, but you can mostly get around one player not doing what's hoped for or expected. Just tell me how they pitch it and we'll go from there.

Liam Doyle -- Does this translate like we expect?

Grayson Saunier - Does he hold down a role all season in the rotation?

Josh Mallitz - How do they use him and is he lights out?

I think they have pretty good balance with those three options in the college game. Connor Spencer is throwing a lot of strikes and has been effective with max effort for an inning. Last Friday was also a nice sight, as he extended into a second inning with Mallitz unavailable.

Mallitz, to me, is me is a Swiss army knife, but to start him you’d have to know his slider can maintain velocity as he stretches above 50 pitches.

Maybe it can. Maybe it can’t. I don’t know. There’s a lot of data that the velocity of it makes it go from hittable to unhittable and vice versa.

He’s incredibly valuable as a two or three inning option who can finish games.

Mason Nichols and Mallitz are both multi-inning options who pitch around runners on well. I like Nichols to have a clean set of bases when he comes in, but he’s been great at throwing strikes once they get on.

The bullpen has some clear roles right now, and that lets pitchers know what to expect. Bianco even used a one-batter lefty matchup on Tuesday with Ryne Rodriguez.