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The University of Mississippi Athletics
ASK OLE MISS: Bianco Answers Your Questions
1/20/2009 | Baseball
ASK OLE MISS provides Rebel fans interactive opportunities with some of the key figures in Ole Miss athletics. The latest installment features head baseball coach Mike Bianco. Questions were sent in by fans through OleMissSports.com over the past week, and Bianco has addressed many of those in the following Q&A.
Q: As a coach, what do you think you need to do to get your team past the Super Regional and into Omaha?
A: There isn’t a secret formula to that question. The formula that we are using is to get into the postseasonRegional and then Super Regional. When you get there, you have to play better than the other team. I know that sounds so simple, but the truth of the matter is that we have been to three Super Regionals and had two very close series with Miami and Texas, where they played a little bit better than we did, which enabled them to get through and go to the College World Series. We want to continue to be consistent. We want to be able to get to postseason. I certainly feel that there is an advantage playing at home, and if you went to Miami for the Regional last year or Arizona State for the Super Regional, you realize that being at home is an advantage, and we need to take advantage of that. It doesn’t mean, though, that if you are on the road that you can’t win. There are teams year in and year out that do succeed, but it makes the road to Omaha a little bit easier when you go through your own stadium.
Q: How will the on-going construction affect the season and how will it affect the players?
A: We have tried to as a staff to convey to the players to not use this as a crutch or as an excuse, and I’m really proud of the players. We practiced this fall at Oxford High School, and as far as the work that needed to get done, the practice time and all those things, it didn’t affect us at all. Logistically, it’s more difficult for the players, but as Matt Smith said yesterday you start to realize how fortunate you are to play for a program like Ole Miss and have all these nice facilities when you go to Oxford High School. Not that their facilities aren’t nice. We are very fortunate for what they did for us by allowing us to use their facility, but logistically it was difficult driving over there and driving back for weights and then driving back. Players have to jump in their cars when normally they can just jump from facility to facility. It should have no effect on us and the team. We still don’t know exactly what effect it will have on the fans. The biggest question is will you be playing on Feb. 24. All I can tell you is that Panola Construction is working to get it done by opening day, and it is my belief that if the thing isn’t 100 percent finished on Feb. 24, it will be very, very close, to where it won’t affect a majority of fans. All the seats will be in. I just believe that everything will be close except maybe some final touches. When it's all complete, we're going to have one of the most impressive stadiums in the country.
Q: What newcomers do you expect to contribute immediately?
A: From the pitching end, look for Aaron Barrett, Chris Corrigan, Kyle Barbeck to pitch this yeartwo junior college transfers and a high school recruit. I think all three will have an immediate impact on the mound where certainly one, or maybe two, of those three will have a chance to start on the weekend for us, and if not as a weekend starter, maybe a midweek starter or out of the bullpen. As far as position players go, the Snyder brothers from Virginia, Mike and Matt, both had tremendous falls. We will look for them to compete for starting roles at both first and third base and at designated hitter. We are returning seven out of the starting nine, so for the new recruitsTaylor Hightower, Kevin Mort, David Phillips, Taylor Hashman, which are guys that I think are outstanding playersI think they are going to contribute, but they are competing hard against guys that have already played here. It will be a little more difficult for them to break the starting lineup.
Q: It appears baseball has been handed the short end of the stick by the NCAA in terms of the number of “full” scholarships available for student-athletes in the sport. What is the rationale, if any for this situation, and what are the prospects that it could be more favorably addressed by future NCAA legislation? Why baseball? Is it a regional or geographical, e.g. temperate weather, thing or what?
A: Not as far as scholarships are concerned. There is a proposal going through the NCAA right now to raise the scholarship limitation to 14, I believe. Certainly, that would help us. It may not help Ole Miss specifically, but it would help student-athletes. Their equivalency average is lower than any sport in the NCAA as far as we are allowed to have 35 guys, but only 11.7 scholarships. So that is a third of a scholarship on average per player. That’s just not fair. As far as the other legislation, I agree. A lot of that legislation, we feel as baseball coaches, was a misinterpretation by the NCAA that academically our student-athletes weren’t doing their job, but when you use the Academic Progress Rating, which the NCAA adopted a few years ago, when you look at where baseball was immediately when it went into effect, it’s easy to see that baseball wasn’t scoring as high as it should. A lot of that has to do with that we didn’t understand the rule until it was in effect, and once it was in effect, our APR has gone up tremendously. Second, in the beginning when the legislation went into effect, I believe the culture of baseball was a little different then it is now in the sense that kids could transfer out. It wasn’t as important if we knew a kid was going to sign professional baseball contract that he would be eligible when he left because there is no reason for him to be eligible because he wasn’t returning since he signed a contract. We changed our philosophy as baseball coaches to keep baseball players eligible all the time so they would not affect your current APR.
Q: If the season was starting today: A. Who would be your Friday, Saturday and Sunday starters? B. Who would be your weekend closers? C. Who would be weekend long relief? D. Who would be your midweek starters?
A: Thankfully, we aren’t starting today because I don’t really know those answers. I think it is safe to say that Drew Pomeranz because of what he did last year as a freshman and he is the only returning weekend starter, that if we started today I would certainly make him one of those starters. Let’s choose him to be the Friday night guy, so we need the other two. We don’t really know who the other two guys are going to be, but we have a good group to choose from right now. It looks like that role would be between Nathan Baker, Phillip Irwin, Aaron Barrett, Kyle Barbeck and Chris Corrigan. As far as midweek starters, it would likely be the guys who didn’t start as weekend starters that I mentioned would move into the midweek starting role. As far as a closer, you can see I haven’t mentioned Scott Bittle yet. He obviously would be the closer to start the season, and that is where we are going to keep him until a time where if we felt we needed more help at the starting role, then we could move him into that. That has been one of the most asked questions, and for now we are going to keep him in the bullpen to start the season. As far as long relief, we are fortunate that most of our bullpen returns from last year. We have Scott at the short role, but we have Jake Morgan, Rory McKean and David Goforth out of the bullpen along with Brett Bukvich and others. So I’m really excited about the depth of our staff this year.
Q: From a talent standpoint, how does this team compare to previous season?
A: I think from a talent standpoint, it’s very comparable to the last three or four years where I thought that we really fielded a talented team. The thing that is a little different this year is that it doesn’t seem to have the high-profile or star quality player or players that some of the last teams have had like Stephen Head, Chris Coghlan, Will Kline, Zach Cozart. Although, that is not a slight to Scott Bittle, but as a reliever or closer, sometimes you don’t get the recognition that you deserve. We are returning seven of the nine position players, which is the most we have ever returned, but we do lose several quality - which is putting it mildly - great pitchers in Lance Lynn, Cody Satterwhite, Justin Cryer and guys from last year’s staff. I’m really excited about this year’s staffnot only the quality but the depth of this year’s pitching staff.
Q: Who do you expect to provide the power in our lineup this year?
A: I think first and foremost Matt Smith. He hit 14 or so home runs last year and coming off a tremendous fall where he looked terrific. He worked really hard and tried to make some corrections, which reduced the strikeouts this fall. We are looking for him to have a big year. But there are other guysLogan Power in his fifth year, a guy who probably averages about 10 home runs a year over the last three years as a starter. Also guys like Matt and Mike Snyder in the lineup certainly, David Phillips, Taylor Hashman, Evan Button, Tim Ferguson. I believe that we will have a little bit more power than last year. That was one of the things that was underrated about last year. We hit 74 home runs, which is the second most that we hit since I have been here. What I’m really excited about with this group is that they are more athletic than we have been in a couple of years. I think this team will look more like the 06 team where we will be able to run and steal a little more. We have more guys throughout the lineup that will be able to steal a base. Certainly throughout the fall we looked at this team as a little bit more defensive team with most of our starters returning.
