It's time for The Mailbag, presented by Whitney McNutt of Tommy Morgan Inc. Realtors, Edition 181.

I'm pinch hitting for Neal McCready this week. I asked for your questions, and you more than delivered. So here we go...

How are we defining a power program? Resources or success? Since it's my mailbag, I'll combine some of the two into a list. Here are a few coaches who come to mind from non-elite jobs. They aren't in any order.

Dan Heefner - Dallas Baptist

Scott Berry - Southern Miss

Mark Calvi - South Alabama

John Szefc - Virginia Tech

Cliff Godwin - East Carolina

Erik Bakich - Michigan

The third assistant certainly needs to be paid, but I don't think baseball is a sport where you hire a bunch of extra coaches. There's just not much sense in it. There needs to be a head coach, recruiting coordinator, hitting coach, pitching coach and I guess if you want to add one more then sure that's fine.

But, beyond that, it feels like overkill and redundant. And I think USM and ULL would add some form of paid assistant in those four main slots. The money would just be far lower and relative to what the paid assistants and head coaches make now at the respective schools. Baseball isn't a sport where hiring a recruiting staff that doesn't do on-field coaching makes sense. Now, in football, you could see coaches who do nothing but recruit.

I'm not a great example of a Hatley person having an opinion on Bobby. A large portion of my friends went to Amory, and my stepbrother played for Hall at Amory from 1993-1996 and was on those back-to-back state title teams. I think he's a great motivator who could get players to buy in and work hard for team goals. In an alternate reality, had some things been different, I think he would have been a great college position coach. He can sell ice to an eskimo, and he would have been an elite recruiter in the South.

I don't know that I had any real feeling on the women's sports being dominant. It was pretty known and expected. If you go in the gym, there are women's state title and grand slam banners everywhere, and there's one men's basketball banner in the corner that I think is North Half runner-up in 1979 or 1980.

Softball and cheerleading also won titles when I was in high school. I don't think Hatley has ever won a football playoff game. We were good at baseball, and we made the state tournament in golf my senior year, but yeah, the women's sports are the ones that have been really good. It wasn't a surprise.

This is going to be a flawed list so don't beat me up when I forget someone obvious, but off the top of my head, in no order, here's what I got. Also, since team talent is equal, recruiting really doesn't matter at all. That's an interesting twist.

Nick Saban

Mark Stoops

Lane Kiffin

Luke Fickell

Matt Campbell

Kyle Whittingham

Mike Gundy

Pat Fitzgerald

Jeff Monken

Lance Leipold

I think I would have said Brian Kelly next.

Yeah, that's definitely the biggest error because it's not like Dylan DeLucia came out of nowhere to suddenly blow up. He was mentioned prominently to me since before he got to campus, and it was with him being a starter in mind. He's much more comfortable starting versus relieving, and a huge part of managing in baseball is putting the players in the correct situations. That's the error.

I get it taking a bit for Hunter Elliott to emerge and you want to make sure to transition the freshmen into roles as they are ready for them. As for Derek Diamond, it's just having the correct expectations. He is a valuable piece, but it wasn't as an ace to provide length. Mike went for experience and seniority early, and it set things on a bad tone. It get it, but in hindsight it was an error.

It's not my job right now to call for someone to be fired, so I'm not going there on the first part of the question. But I appreciate you asking and taking the shot on it. If it comes to that, obviously I'll deep dive into what I would do. I think Keith Carter is very aware of the direction of the program, and I think he's very capable of making a change should that be required at the end of the season.

I'm not doing a hot board right now. I think the names everyone knows are at the top of the potential list, and I think it's important to have a coach that has a thorough hand in recruiting and does more recruiting than just on campus and with the last in-home.

And adaptability and creativity are huge traits in today's college baseball world. Maximizing scholarships and NIL and roster sizes are paramount. It's also important to utilize the assistant coaching spots very effectively when, for now, only two are paid positions. You can't micromanage, and you can't have dead weight with the assistants.

We can definitely get Chris' updated thoughts on this. Tennessee has been reckless with it, and was essentially given permission in a way considering the league didn't really do anything and didn't want to do anything. I think more eyes are on the Vols so it's not as widespread, but there are a lot of rumors that they have bats ready for certain situations. Is that true?

I don't know, but a lot of people believe it who are pretty tied in with SEC baseball. I will say if UT gets caught again, I think it blows up. But it should have blown up after the first time. Frankly, everyone should roll and maybe shave if you aren't punished. If the bat fails pre-series inspection then just throw it out and move on.

I truly think Brad Bohannon is a quality baseball coach who is at a hard job and has had some rotten luck. I'd like to have seen the improvement from the Tide had Connor Prielipp stayed healthy. Give any team an SEC Pitcher of the Year for three years, and the program will look different at the end of that.

I think if openings happen and Mike is no longer at Ole Miss, Alabama, South Carolina and Kentucky would all make a lot of sense for him. He's a really good program-builder, and his message would resonate. Bama and UK would be thrilled to have him. Carolina would be a harder sell, and Ray Tanner doesn't have the same juice he had five years ago.

I don't know if there's any major fallout. There was definite tension on both sides around the rainout situation at AutoZone Park, but honestly a lot of that was with the AutoZone Park people more than Memphis. Schoenrock is really respected, and Mike likes him a lot. But other than it's close and they've always done it, the series feels a little weird. Memphis would like Ole Miss to play on campus. Ole Miss doesn't want to play on campus. I wouldn't mind a break from it and the Rebels do something with UAB instead.

I think Neal is still the same person, largely. I think he would tell you he's calmer and less intense than when we started working together. Coincidentally, today is my 13th anniversary with Rivals.com. I started right before the baseball postseason in 2009.

Things don't bother him like they once would have. He's more adaptable, and we've both transitioned well from writer and hard-lined print to embracing the entrepreneurial side of this job that's allowed us to expand revenue and reach. From podcasts and handling the pandemic from a business standpoint to just trying things and not being afraid to fail, it's been a success. Not everything has worked, and neither of us has been perfect, but it's transformed in a lot of positive ways.

It's somewhat nuts that it's been 13 years, and we've had a really good working relationship with relatively few issues. I've made mistakes, and I've been a bad co-worker at times. I've let some personal stuff affect my work performance. We've picked each other up throughout the years, and I trust him as a co-worker and as a friend. We've spent uncountable hours on the phone talking about any topic you can imagine. It's how our friendship started when I was at Inside The Grove.

I think Neal is more efficient now than years ago, and while I'm just now getting into the phase of my daughter in school, I've watched him handle and adapt with the work-life balance of kids growing up. There are things I'll take from that -- in both directions.

I called him leaving a basketball game in early 2009 and asked if he had anything open. Literally. Anything. He told me sure, but it would be working for peanuts. At the time I was looking for a life raft out of the ESPN team site debacle. I had no idea it would turn into this, and we'd be more than 2,000-2,500 podcasts deep. The site is far bigger in subscriptions compared to then. I didn't even know there would be a podcast. We both thank you guys for the support and the decision to spend your time with us here. You've made this partnership possible.

1. Godfather

2. Godfather 2

3. Goodfellas

4. The Departed

5. Casino

6. American Gangster

7. Donnie Brasco

8. A Bronx Tale

I don't really have an answer, but I think it's cyclical in a way with talent coming through the program. Also a coaching change can impact development at the lower levels and change the starting point when players get to high school. Even if it's just a different structure.

Buy-in was so high throughout the entire school and community during that elite era. I'm not saying it isn't now because I don't know and haven't been over there, but I think when the results fade a touch, it's easy to slip in a lot of ways, and if that combines with a talent decrease, it can change the trajectory or ceiling fast. Also, other teams are really trying. There's more investment across the state in 6A football. It's not in a vacuum.

I'm in prove-it mode with the Saints right now. I am spending my offseasons saying I don't care and I'm going to be less of a crazy person, and then the season gets here and I become insane again. I knew the Saints had zero chance of winning the Super Bowl, but I was so pissed at the Rams for blowing that final-week game in the regular season to keep the Saints out of the playoffs.

New Orleans is in quarterback purgatory with Jameis Winston. He can get them to the playoffs but can't win it all, so I'll be open to new options. Roll the dice until someone is good enough to win a title. A .500 record or a wild card loss is the worst thing possible.

I haven't, but I feel like I need to after reading about it. I see it has no score on Rotten Tomatoes. That can't be good, can it. I did see these two facts about the movie. Apparently Heston is in the running for worst movie athlete.

Despite having All-Pro signal-caller Billy Kilmer as an instructor, Charlton Heston did not make a very convincing pro quarterback. "I marveled at how skinny he was in a Saints uniform", said local DJ Bob Walker, who was an extra in the movie. "It hung on him like a cheap suit three sizes too big. When the cameras weren't rolling we watched him try to throw some passes. His receiver was 10-20 yards away and his alleged passes didn't come close. "Joe Wendryhoski, who basically played himself in the film as the Saints center, called Heston "a great guy, very sociable" who unfortunately "didn't have an athletic bone in his body. As a quarterback, he left a lot to be desired."

In the final scene when Catlan is crushed by the Dallas defense (actually portrayed by Saints players Mike Tilleman, Dave Rowe and Fred Whittingham), neither Heston nor the producer felt the hit on him was realistic enough, so Heston asked them to cut loose to really make it look authentic. On the second take, the trio slammed the actor to the ground, breaking three of his ribs

I think Matt does well at Carolina. I worry a little about the unknown of a possible coaching search because it doesn't seem like Matt Rhule is on great footing in Charlotte, but overall I think it's a good fit, and I won't be surprised if he's a pain in my tail for a while in the NFC South. He's a better teammate than he got credit for in evaluations, and I think the Panthers will respect what he does on the field. The tape doesn't lie. I don't know if he's a year-one guy. I think he has a lot to learn, and Darnold provides time to do that, but I do think he's going to be a successful NFL quarterback.

I'm sure it will at some point, at least in some iteration. It doesn't fit our current format for a Friday show, but maybe we add it in weekly on a different day or sporadically during the summer. It was a really good concept for end-of-week shows, and I thought it let us improvise and show our personalities more on a wider range of topics. I like the podcast mailbags, and they'll pop up more than they do right now, even if it's not every Friday.

My eyebrows raised at those comments, too, but honestly I think he was speaking to both guys in different ways and in ways that he thought they needed. Diamond was having some good innings before adversity would hit the second time through the order (which should have been accounted for in how he was used) and I think Mike was hoping to give him confidence by praising him after the games. I'm sure it was hard for Diamond to end his outings like that. On the other side, the expectations for Elliott are really high, and Mike was challenging him to be even better. He admitted it maybe last weekend. Elliott has responded and sharpened his game in recent weeks.

I knew I wanted to be around sports but wasn't good enough to have a career playing them. That part isn't unique at all. And I have always loved words and thought I could write. The last day of my junior year of high school I went into my local newspaper -- a weekly called the Amory Advertiser -- and asked for a job covering sports. I'd never had anything published, and all I had on me were a makeshift resume and a high school English essay about Thanksgiving.

The editor, Beth Bunch, said OK and told me to cover legion baseball the next week. I had no idea what I was doing, but I learned how to talk to coaches and players and sort of learned how to write sports.

When I went to ICC I was the sports editor of The Chieftain, and I worked at the Itawamba County Times. By then I was hooked. And, for my age, I had a lot of confidence because I had done so much of it. I was still ignorant on so many aspects of it, but it gave me a really good baseline to learn later.

By the time I was at The Daily Mississippian and definitely as the sports editor there, I knew it was my career. There's an adrenaline you get sometimes when you're covering a story or chasing some lead or when you're ready to hit the publish button. If you get it, you're doing the right thing. If you don't, you need to do something else.

I think Nutt's was the hardest because it played favorites and wasn't upfront about things. Not the whole staff but enough of them to make it complicated. Freeze's staff was somewhere in the middle and mostly fine and depending on the way you characterize it, Kiffin's staff is the hardest or the easiest. They don't communicate much with the media, but it's completely the same for everyone. Which is really all you can ask. Whether it's tons of access or no access, just be the same with everybody.

Money is a lot of it. It's been hard to attract top coaches -- head and assistant -- and I'm not even sure they are maxing what's allowed for player aid. The West Coast has been down in baseball, and that affects RPI, and other teams have emerged as the top programs in different seasons. And once that spiral begins, it's hard to stop it -- even if it's just a decrease from elite to quality program. It was eye-opening how limited the resources were at Fullerton when Dave Serrano left for Tennessee.

The short answer is I'm not very good at it. I've gotten better. I used to run with my phone during the day just in case something happened while I was gone, but I've gotten out of that. I leave it at home. It's the main reason I got a Garmin, so I could download the podcasts to my watch and not need my phone.

I can't completely shut off every day at 5 p.m. That's not realistic, but I do try to improve put it down at dinner or spending time with Carly Ann. And I can't decide if the watch giving me notifications is a good thing or bad thing. In a way, I can see if it's important or not and respond accordingly, but on the other hand there's a lot of buzzing that can be a distraction.

I used to get a lot of travel anxiety and have a hard time really stepping away on vacations or anything with extended out of pocket, but that was better this last time, and I do think I have made a lot of progress. I mean my job is pretty on call, but rarely is it life or death and needs immediate attention. I sleep with my phone on sleep mode, and I try to outline my day to know what I need to get done and that gives me some peace to not worry about every little thing immediately.

I get a lot done between 5 and 6:30 in the morning, and that puts me in a good mindset. The big thing is to really unplug when the opportunity is there or when I'm doing something else. And not keep an eye on my phone just in case.

I'm just a lowly sportswriter who yaps into a microphone. Nope. Not touching that one.

It has to be climate appropriate. We can't move Aspen to Mississippi. And we can't move anything that needs the ocean next to it. Obviously Dallas or something like that makes sense in this thought exercise, but what about Orlando? Disney World (I get it's not Orlando proper, but I'm counting it) would bring in a ton of tourists and tax dollars and be an immediate influx to the state economically. Here's an excerpt from a Tallahassee Democrat article:

$75.2 billion annual economic impact for Central Florida. 463,000 jobs. $5.8 billion in additional state tax revenue.

The sales tax collected just on the 58 million Disney World tickets sold in 2018 was $409 million. That’s more than what the state will spend this year on school construction and maintenance or the entire Department of Elder Affairs budget.

It would also bring a few golf courses with it, too. I wouldn't hate that.

They are a low-carb lifesaver. If I'm watching my carbs, pork rinds and those 50 calorie, 4 net carbs wraps are some of God's greatest inventions and great tools. I like pork rinds a lot, particularly the barbecue flavor. But if I'm not doing a low-carb diet, they are kind of fattening and no better than chips or whatever else. Pro tip: the pork skins at Blind Pig are awesome. #NotAnAd.

It sounds like a cop-out, but I really don't know. I've heard so many things that I don't know what's real and true and what isn't. Everyone who is sort of sourced on Ole Miss football and recruiting has an Arch Manning theory, and some are not wrong and some are not right and the truth is in the middle on a lot of them.

I know Lane Kiffin had some catching up and work to do with the Mannings, and I know things improved there. I think there's a healthy respect between the two sides and definitely nothing malicious. But I do wonder if chemistry or personalities or fit or whatever just wasn't there.

Arch said multiple times he liked talking ball with Kiffin, and I think they could connect pretty well over a whiteboard. But between whether or not Arch wanted to take on the Ole Miss legacy stuff and follow in those footsteps, it is a complicated deal. In the end, I think the kid is just doing what he wants to do and isn't getting interference from his family. They are there for advice, but this feels like Arch's decision only.

I changed my major to political science my first semester at Ole Miss and thought I wanted to be an attorney. I thought that until I actually worked in a law firm. I spent a summer at a firm in Tupelo and realized I wanted to get back to writing and journalism.

Were I not doing this, I may have followed through with law. Also, if we're just daydreaming about professions, I would like to be some sort of political campaign strategist. I'm not as into politics as I was a few years ago, but I love campaigns and messaging and the science of it. That's what really appealed to me about that major while I did it. I still minored in it after switching back to journalism.

I would laugh uncontrollably, feel bad for the people of getting that close and falling short and then I would avoid the message board for like a week. Maybe longer.

I think they will punish someone who decides to really cooperate. I expect NCAA letters of inquiry to a few schools, and the NCAA to poke around in some places, and it'll be an interesting spot for some athletics departments that fear lack of institutional control and failure to monitor.

I think it's easier today than 10 years ago to delay and ignore and push things toward court and the court of public opinion, but the NCAA is pretty good at talking about how schools are voluntary members and must comply in all ways, and considering most every school has some sort of pay-for-play in its NIL spaces, it's ripe for a good little soldier to get torpedoed by the NCAA.

I don't know who it will happen to and proving the inducements were given prior to enrollment will be complicated, but someone somewhere will have slipped up and then will trust the NCAA when it asks for mercy

It's maybe my biggest grammar pet peeve, which is saying something because I can be a bit opinionated on the topic. I judge anyone who uses the apostrophe on Christmas cards. I can't help it. I try to be nice. But it's just showing the world that you don't know any better. Bless your heart.

The horse needed to be punched right there, and it was also a great thing for viewership. We not only get a historic longshot for the next race, but we also get an idiotic, spastic horse that might do anything on the track. The trainer said he was still in race mode when he attacked the other horse. I mean it's compelling entertainment, if nothing else.