'Win a National Championship!' Ole Miss Coach Mike Bianco Reveals Reason For Ethan Lege's Return

The Ole Miss Rebels have enjoyed recent success on the diamond, and a large part of that run has come from the veteran presence of Ethan Lege in the lineup.

Ethan Lege didn't have to come back to Oxford if he didn't want to.

The Ole Miss Rebels utility player (who serves mostly in the outfield this season) has had multiple opportunities to sign and play professional ball, but he opted to return to Ole Miss for a second year this offseason. 

That's big news for the Rebels who expected Lege to burst onto the scene last season. Given Ole Miss' struggles on the field, however, very few new faces seemed to have a big year in defense of the national championship.

"Going into last year, we thought he was going to be a big piece," head coach Mike Bianco said last weekend, "but the year was so tough, nobody was a big piece. We had some of the older guys, those guys had really good years, but him and [Ethan] Groff, they had just 'okay' years. But you wonder if it had been a better team, would they have had better years?"

The Rebels won the national championship in 2022 before Lege's arrival from Delgado Community College, and now that he is hitting at a .382 clip this spring, it's worth asking why he opted to run it back for another collegiate season after such a difficult team campaign in 2023.

The answer? He wants to win a title, and he's seen former teammates reach that pinnacle at the Division I level after taking the JUCO route.

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"He could have signed before he got here, got here last year, and had opportunities this summer to sign," Bianco said. "He called, and the honest truth is he watches [Brayden] Jobert, his buddy, who went to junior college baseball, played at LSU and won a national championship. He said, 'I don't want to sign. I came here to win a national championship.'

"Those guys, when they come back for the right reasons, not only seem to have really good years, but they kind of drive the team. He's that kind of guy."

So far this season, Lege has hit five home runs and accumulated 19 RBIs as his team holds a 15-6 overall record and 2-1 mark in SEC play. The Rebels lost the last time out, but they did pick up a series win over the South Carolina Gamecocks over the weekend to open the conference slate.

Ole Miss will travel to Pearl, Miss., on Tuesday to face the Southern Miss Golden Eagles in midweek action before hitting the road to Knoxville to take on the nationally-ranked Tennessee Volunteers this weekend. First pitch against USM is set for 6 p.m. CT, and the game will be televised on SEC Network+.