Starting the 2025 season on the road to be a test for 'new faces' of Ole Miss baseball

Ole Miss baseball is nine days away from opening up its 2025 season and the attempt to better the previous two campaigns results. This starts with a trip to Arlington, Texas to play in the Shriner’s Children’s College Showdown against three elite programs.

Those three teams are No. 15 Clemson, No. 19 Texas and No. 21 Arizona inside Globe Life Stadium February 14-16. The Rebels start against the Wildcats on Friday (3 p.m. CT), Longhorns on Saturday (7:30 p.m. CT) and the Tigers on Sunday (2:30 p.m. CT). All games will be broadcast on FloCollege.

Beyond starting off against three Top 25 teams while trying to regain momentum long gone from the program’s 2022 national title run, Ole Miss will be doing so with a roster half-comprised of new players. With 11 true freshman and 12 transfers from the portal and JUCO level there is a lot of newness in the clubhouse and something Mike Bianco is well aware of leaving to friendly confines of Swayze Field to start the season.

Always a challenge to start a year on the road but next week has an added level of difficulties.

“We got a lot of new faces,” Bianco said on Wednesday. “Even though it may be somebody that traveled from another school, the way we travel, and to us, it’s to get on plane, to get on a bus, to be at a hotel, to do the Thursday night practice and all the meetings that go along with the weekend. It’s. the first dry run to do that. So, it doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced guy. You did it probably at another program.”

Bianco was on a Zoom press conference with the five other head coaches previewing next weekend’s six-team event.

The first road trip of the season being a challenge is not necessarily exclusive to Ole Miss players.

Bianco added a new face to his coaching staff, hiring Joel Mangrum as the Rebels pitching coach. Mangrum is coming in after years of experience at the Major League level, serving as the pitching coordinator for the Cleveland Guardians organization.

The early returns on Mangrum’s hiring has been positive among the Ole Miss pitching staff, including ace Hunter Elliott.

Next weekend will also be a learning curve of Mangrum adapting to road trip protocols and the players adapting to his style.

“The other thing that’s probably been as much of an education is Joel Mangrum,” Bianco added. “Trying to figure out when he’s going to have his meetings and things that he feels are important that weekend and getting it done.”

Throughout fall ball and in preseason practices and intrasquads the Ole Miss hitters have seen the progress made by the pitchers under Mangrum’s tutelage in a short time.

Hitting coach Mike Clement has been able get with Mangrum after the scrimmages and look to see what is working or not.

“I hear all the time how good a pitching coach he is and I can confirm that and I’m ready to face somebody else,” Clement said during an appearance on last week’s Reb Talk coaches show. “You’re going to see the impact from the start with both returners and some really talented freshmen.

“Someone always fails and someone has success when you play so many intrasquad games. Joel and I kind of debrief after every intrasquad and it’s been really good for me as a hitting coach because we haven’t had that with (Bianco) running the pitching staff during my time here. We’re able to kind of talk about strengths and weaknesses and bounce some things off each other and it’s been really beneficial for both sides of the baseball.”