Ole Miss and Mississippi State get together for three games beginning Friday at 7 p.m. The series continues at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday and 1:30 p.m. on Sunday. The Rebels are 18-15 overall and 3-9 in the SEC after back-to-back sweeps. Mississippi State is 21-12 and 6-6.
Friday's game is on SEC Network, and the Saturday matchup is on ESPN2.
Let's dive into you questions.
Well, that's the question isn't it?
Ole Miss is desperately in need of a series victory, currently sitting six games below .500 in the SEC and tied for 12th in the conference. For any shot at NCAA Tournament play, the Rebels need to go 10-8 down the stretch. No SEC team has ever gotten in with more than 17 SEC losses. Ole Miss does have a top-30 RPI.
The numbers all lean to the Bulldogs, who are competitive after two straight dreadful seasons following their national title.
Ole Miss has lost seven straight weekend series to Mississippi State and are 6-18 in its last 24 SEC home games. Nic Perkins is the last Rebels to get a hit in a weekend series win over Mississippi State.
I picked the Bulldogs to get two out of three because they are playing better and have more stability on the mound. Ole Miss did get after MSU Friday starter Khal Stephen when he was at Purdue.
Stephen has almost identical batted-ball numbers compared to a year ago when he had an ERA over 5 with the Boilermakers, but his strikeout rate is up from 19 to 27 and his walk rate is down from 9 to 6, leading to better stats cross the board.
Mike Bianco was one of the last college coaches to employ the shift, finally using it occasionally and them much more so this season. I think it's overvalued in the college game.
The sample sizes are small, and outside of some dead-pull hitters, it's just not that reliable. I think fans overvalue it because you're just happy when your guy beats it offensively, and you're frustrated when it works against you.
Also, I've noticed pitchers in college don't do a great job pitching to it. They often leave a pitch in a place that the hitter can only really hit it against the shift. There's a certain teamwork that has to come with it. I haven't seen that be effective with Ole Miss or many other college teams.
I could competitively eat any food, but I probably wouldn't like it or have a chance to actually be competitive. I think for anyone chicken nuggets make the most sense. There's not the technique necessary like with hot dogs or oysters, and it's protein for the most part. You'd actually put up a number that looked like you tried.
Heavy bread foods like donuts worry me because of the difficulty chewing after a couple minutes, and I bet that's a bad feeling when it's over. I think my answer, though, is street tacos or hard shelled tacos. I love them, and they seem easy to hold and eat. My concern is the shells cutting my mouth. That would be a likelihood over 10-12 minutes.
I may have put too much thought into this.
Schedules aren't the same, competition, yada, yada, yada.
In SEC games, Missouri is dead last in batting average, slugging, on-base, runs, hits, doubles, home runs and total bases. Ole Miss is 12th in batting average and 13th in slugging, runs, hits, double and total bases. The Rebels are 11th in on-base and ninth in home runs.
Missouri is fourth in ERA; Ole Miss is 13th. Missouri is fourth in opposing batting average; Ole Miss is 12th. Missouri has allowed 31 fewer hits in nine more innings pitched. Missouri has allowed 27 fewer walks.
For sure. Ole Miss is going to win three more games this season which gives Bianco 1,000 for his career and 900 at Ole Miss. The milestone comes with a $125,000 bonus.
Let's go with April 19 at Georgia for when it happens. That's a week from today. The Bulldogs, however, have only lost one home game this season.
Bianco, in third place, is more than 300 behind Ron Polk for most SEC wins all-time. Tim Corbin has 909 SEC wins, and Dave Van Horn is 34 behind Bianco.
Both Corbin and Van Horn entered the league in 2003, two years after Bianco.
