Ole Miss Baseball's Season-Opening Road Trip Features Test of New Faces, Experiences

The Ole Miss Rebels are set to open the 2025 season in Arlington with a host of new faces and experiences against Top 25 competition.

Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco (5) makes a pitching change against Mississippi State at Swayze Field in Oxford, Miss., on Friday, Apr. 12, 2024. | Bruce Newman/Special to the Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Ole Miss Rebels are nearing first pitch for the 2025 baseball season, and they will be doing so with a raft of new faces on the roster.

Ole Miss' clubhouse features 11 true freshmen and 12 transfers (from the portal or JUCO ranks), and their first taste of Rebel baseball will come on the road in the Shriners Children's College Classic set to take place at Globe Life Field in Arlington.

The Rebels are set to face Top 25 competition when they take on Arizona, Texas and Clemson in the tournament, but one of the biggest challenges for head coach Mike Bianco's team will be starting on the road with so many new roster pieces.

"We've got a lot of new faces," Bianco said in a press conference 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 in a hotel, to do the Thursday night practice and all the meetings that go along with a 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."

Throwing in another variable, Ole Miss now has a new pitching coach in Joel Mangrum who is taking over those duties from Bianco who has served in both that role and the head coaching position for years. Having Mangrum in the fold should benefit the Rebels this season, but it also adds a new layer to road trips.

"The other thing that's probably been as much of an education is Joel Mangrum pitching coach and trying to figure out when he's going to have his meetings and things that he feels that are important in that weekend and getting it done," Bianco said. "That's been an experience as well."

The Rebels were projected to finish 15th in the Southeastern Conference in the preseason coaches poll released on Wednesday, and in order to overcome that prediction, these new faces and new experiences will have to gel and gel quickly on the field of play.

First pitch for Ole Miss in Arlington is scheduled for 3 p.m. CT on Feb. 14 against the Arizona Wildcats. The Rebels' games in Arlington will be streamed on FloCollege.