The University of Mississippi Athletics
It’s Baseball Season Again
2/13/2026 | Baseball
By Jeff Roberson
"Stories From Ole Miss Baseball," that I co-authored in 2025, points out the significance of college baseball generally and Ole Miss baseball specifically.
"This sport, at this place, defines the spring, and it defines relationships for many of you, too," wrote Chase Parham, co-author, on what baseball means here. "You watch it and experience it and talk about it and long to live it again."
A rite of spring, you could say, to use an ancient but familiar phrase.
"I've been on a lot of sports teams in my lifetime," Archie Manning, All-SEC shortstop, All-American college quarterback, and following one season the NFC Player of the Year in the NFL with the Saints, wrote in the Foreword to our book, "but I wouldn't swap any of them for the years I played baseball at Ole Miss."
And while the seasons beginning with 2001 under Coach Mike Bianco and staff have consistently been the program's best and certainly drawn the most attention, there was good baseball, championship baseball, here prior to the 21st century.
I like to put it this way. Of the original 13 charter members in the Southeastern Conference, when Ole Miss went to the College World Series in Omaha for the fourth time in 1972, no other program among all those schools had been more than once. Let that sink in for a moment.
I wrote in the book that I'll always recall, before one of the three games in the 2006 Oxford Super Regional, the Miami Hurricane players completely stopped their warmup drills as the gates opened to watch Ole Miss fans and students race into the stadium to get their spots in the outfield and in the grandstand. It was as if the visiting players couldn't believe what they were seeing.
"This sport, at this place….."
It's something fans look forward to all winter, to warmer days, especially after a generational ice event, sometimes still having to tolerate a few cold nights…..but the renewing once again of a still relatively new calendar year, and it is baseball which takes us to summer.
Always a goal - keep playing into summer, into June, hopefully late June.
Ace Hunter Elliott, from the 2022 College World Series National Champion team, is still here because of a number of circumstances. And the Rebels should obviously be better because he is.
The left-hander's return, and a collection of older players on the ballclub, are some of the reasons for optimism in this deeply talented league of 16 of the nation's best teams. The Rebels will have their hands full game in and game out. And so will every other team in this conference.
Watching it from their outfield positions will be hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Ole Miss students. No place in college baseball has a better student environment than Oxford-University Stadium/Swayze Field. And its reputation as the place to be for college baseball - almost like having the Grove atmosphere at the actual game itself - continues to grow.
"Being a high school baseball player, I found myself scrolling through old college game recaps," wrote current Ole Miss student Zach Moreth of Chicago in our baseball book. He had found a YouTube of an Ole Miss baseball game.
"Between the size of the crowd, the energy, the atmosphere, and finally, the beer showers, my mind was blown." Zach knew that it "simply had to be a part of my college experience."
So after high school he headed to Ole Miss. And the baseball environment was just like he expected, if not better.
Now it's time for college baseball 2026, and the return of Rebel baseball. We've all been waiting since, well, since June.
From another sport on campus - football - to quote a late, great legend of our past, Chucky Mullins, "It's time."
Play ball.
Jeff Roberson has covered Ole Miss athletics for more than three decades.
"Stories From Ole Miss Baseball," that I co-authored in 2025, points out the significance of college baseball generally and Ole Miss baseball specifically.
"This sport, at this place, defines the spring, and it defines relationships for many of you, too," wrote Chase Parham, co-author, on what baseball means here. "You watch it and experience it and talk about it and long to live it again."
A rite of spring, you could say, to use an ancient but familiar phrase.
"I've been on a lot of sports teams in my lifetime," Archie Manning, All-SEC shortstop, All-American college quarterback, and following one season the NFC Player of the Year in the NFL with the Saints, wrote in the Foreword to our book, "but I wouldn't swap any of them for the years I played baseball at Ole Miss."
And while the seasons beginning with 2001 under Coach Mike Bianco and staff have consistently been the program's best and certainly drawn the most attention, there was good baseball, championship baseball, here prior to the 21st century.
I like to put it this way. Of the original 13 charter members in the Southeastern Conference, when Ole Miss went to the College World Series in Omaha for the fourth time in 1972, no other program among all those schools had been more than once. Let that sink in for a moment.
I wrote in the book that I'll always recall, before one of the three games in the 2006 Oxford Super Regional, the Miami Hurricane players completely stopped their warmup drills as the gates opened to watch Ole Miss fans and students race into the stadium to get their spots in the outfield and in the grandstand. It was as if the visiting players couldn't believe what they were seeing.
"This sport, at this place….."
It's something fans look forward to all winter, to warmer days, especially after a generational ice event, sometimes still having to tolerate a few cold nights…..but the renewing once again of a still relatively new calendar year, and it is baseball which takes us to summer.
Always a goal - keep playing into summer, into June, hopefully late June.
Ace Hunter Elliott, from the 2022 College World Series National Champion team, is still here because of a number of circumstances. And the Rebels should obviously be better because he is.
The left-hander's return, and a collection of older players on the ballclub, are some of the reasons for optimism in this deeply talented league of 16 of the nation's best teams. The Rebels will have their hands full game in and game out. And so will every other team in this conference.
Watching it from their outfield positions will be hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Ole Miss students. No place in college baseball has a better student environment than Oxford-University Stadium/Swayze Field. And its reputation as the place to be for college baseball - almost like having the Grove atmosphere at the actual game itself - continues to grow.
"Being a high school baseball player, I found myself scrolling through old college game recaps," wrote current Ole Miss student Zach Moreth of Chicago in our baseball book. He had found a YouTube of an Ole Miss baseball game.
"Between the size of the crowd, the energy, the atmosphere, and finally, the beer showers, my mind was blown." Zach knew that it "simply had to be a part of my college experience."
So after high school he headed to Ole Miss. And the baseball environment was just like he expected, if not better.
Now it's time for college baseball 2026, and the return of Rebel baseball. We've all been waiting since, well, since June.
From another sport on campus - football - to quote a late, great legend of our past, Chucky Mullins, "It's time."
Play ball.
Jeff Roberson has covered Ole Miss athletics for more than three decades.
Players Mentioned
LHP
/ BaseballHIGHLIGHTS: Baseball vs. Nevada (2/13/26)
Friday, February 13
PRESSER | Mike Bianco - Ole Miss Baseball Media Day (02-10-26)
Tuesday, February 10
PRESSER | Hunter Elliott - Ole Miss Baseball Media Day (02-10-26)
Tuesday, February 10
PRESSER | Judd Utermark - Ole Miss Baseball Media Day (02-10-26)
Tuesday, February 10