OMAHA —I’m admittedly not one who does his best work when dwelling on instances of yesteryear. But every once in a while, even a sportswriter needs a reminder of what makes this whole thing worthwhile.
Four years ago, I sat in the press box for the better part of two weeks at Charles Schwab Field as Ole Miss — famously one of the last four teams in the 2022 NCAA Tournament field after a rollercoaster of a season that saw a team once ranked No. 1 nearly miss the postseason entirely — win the College World Series for the first time in program history. The starting pitcher in the decisive game against Oklahoma was a true freshman from Tupelo named Hunter Elliott.
Eight months or so after that, I met a bright-eyed freshman named Will Furniss. His last name preceded him, as his father Eddy is college baseball royalty. But Furniss was in Oxford to create his own legacy, and Eddy couldn’t have been prouder of that. In that same timeframe I met Furniss’ classmate, Judd Utermark, a highly-touted slugger from North Carolina who had 28 combined hits over his first two college seasons in a role that was largely undefined due to nagging injuries.
Two years ago I was introduced to Brayden Randle, an all-state selection from Texas who started 34 games in the middle infield as a true freshman but proceeded to start just 18 the next year and was replaced as the Rebels’ shortstop partway through his junior season.
A year ago I got to know a key trio of freshman pitchers — Taylor Rabe, Walker Hooks and Cade Townsend. Rabe was a redshirt who underwent Tommy John’s surgery his first year and took time to see his career take off. Hooks was a local product from Brandon who did a bit of everything in 2025. Townsend, meanwhile, was a star from Southern California with all the talent in the world who was plagued by inconsistency his first college season. I also met Hayden Federico around that time, the son of a college baseball coach who could clearly hit from the day he showed up on campus but had work to do as a fielder.
Over the last few days, I saw all these young men get introduced in front of 25,000-plus fans in Omaha at the College World Series. Did the Rebels win it all? No. In fact, they lost both games they played and were the first team eliminated from the eight-team field. And some of these players played poorly during their two-game stay. But for the purpose of this thought exercise, that’s not really important.
Because the 2026 Ole Miss baseball team showed me there’s still so much right about college sports in a world that constantly tries to make us believe otherwise.
My first season covering Ole Miss athletics was the 2021-22 academic year. The 2022-23 freshman class is the first I’ve been fortunate enough to see all the way through. That’s an increasingly rare feat in modern college sports, where it’s not uncommon to see athletes play at two or sometimes three schools during their college careers. According to D1Baseball, 24 of Ole Miss’ 38 players were homegrown. Heading into the College World Series, 84% of Ole Miss’ postseason innings were pitched by players originally recruited to the school, and the Rebels were the only team in the field with more than half its postseason plate appearances coming from original recruits, per D1Baseball.
I was able to see Elliott take the mound again at the College World Series after missing nearly two full years of his career due to an elbow injury. I witnessed Furniss and Utermark — who missed the postseason entirely their first two seasons — grow into team leaders who stuck around when times got tough and have it pay off in a way children can only dream of.
When the games mattered the most this year, I saw Randle take over a position he hadn’t played in a live game since he was 14 and thrive both at the plate and outfield, driving in seven runs in the postseason alone after knocking in 16 during the entire regular season.
I watched Rabe and Townsend turn into likely high MLB Draft picks whenever they choose to start their next chapters, and I witnessed Hooks develop into an All-American. I witnessed Federico become a highlight-reel centerfielder who saved the clinching game of the Auburn Super Regional with his snow-cone catch.
These aren’t the only players who helped Ole Miss reach the College World Series, of course. And it’s not like the entire roster is homegrown; the Rebels aren’t in Omaha without transfers like Dom Decker, Tristan Bissetta, Austin Fawley and others. But there was something very old-school about this team that made me nostalgic. It reminded me of teams I watched during my formative years as a teenager.
As most know by now, I grew up in the Los Angeles area during the peak of USC football, when the Trojans were the biggest show in a town that is never starving for leading acts. Back then, I got to see players who entered as freshman take their lumps and eventually turn into stars by the time they were juniors and seniors. I remember star quarterback Carson Palmer, a Southern California high school legend, be considered a bust for much of his career until blossoming into the Heisman Trophy winner as a senior. When USC lost the 2006 national title game to Texas — I was sitting in the Rose Bowl stands that night, for the record, a junior in high school not realizing the gravity of the moment quite yet — I was distraught because a group of juniors and seniors I had seen from start to finish had taken the field for the last time ever.
We don’t get stories like this very often anymore; when times get tough, the transfer portal has allowed athletes to find fresh starts. If players feel undervalued, they can search for more lucrative deals elsewhere. Every other day it seems like there’s a court hearing regarding a player’s eligibility or a conversation about whether or not the NCAA will even exist in a few years. These aren’t bad things; student-athletes deserve the freedom to feel wanted and play where they’re truly happy. But to say college sports haven’t changed drastically in the last decade would be turning a blind eye toward the obvious.
There was something very pure and, in a weird way comforting, about seeing Elliott and Furniss and Utermark and company return the program to the College World Series.
We don’t root for teams in this business. We root for great stories. And the 2026 Rebels reminded me just how many great stories there are still out there.
No, there’s probably no going back in college sports. If anything the waters will probably only get murkier. But every once in a while a story comes around that lets you know it’s all going to be OK.
Before leaving Sunday’s press conference following Ole Miss’ elimination at the hands of Troy, I asked Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco what this team and postseason run meant to him. Given the freshness of the wound, he wasn’t fully prepared to answer. But he did leave me with this.
“Maybe in another week or two we can revisit that question, because it’s not about me. I’ve said it many times. This is my 26th year here. All the teams are different and they’re all special. There’s different kids. You have Hunter Elliott as a freshman or Will Furniss as a freshman, and you watch those guys grow, and that’s why you’ve got the coolest job in the world, is you get to be a part of that.”
Thank you, Mike, for reminding me just how cool my job is too.
Michael Katz covers Ole Miss Athletics for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.
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