Keith Carter: 'A lot of bad information out there right now' about Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco

The week has been, for the most part, business as usual for Ole Miss baseball.

Of course, there’s a Mike Bianco-sized elephant in the room. As first reported by the Ole Miss Spirit on Friday, the long-time Rebel head coach, whose team recently wrapped a 45-win season, the fourth most wins in school history, is one of the two top candidates, along with ECU’s Cliff Godwin, for the LSU job vacated by Paul Mainieri.

Bianco has been completely silent about his alma mater’s pursuits. He held player exit interviews on Monday and Tuesday, which led to one of what could be a handful of departures, as outfielder Cade Sammons has entered the transfer portal. The Rebels even hosted Arizona State transfer first baseman Jack Moss for a visit.

“I don’t think that leaves much time for him to be in Baton Rouge,” Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter said.

Further, he sat down with Carter Wednesday morning for their annual end-of-the-year meeting. The topics of discussion mostly centered on the usual — the 2021 season, when Ole Miss fell a win shy of the College World Series for the second consecutive postseason, the future of the program, etc.

“This was a typical end-of-the-year wrap-up meeting,” Carter said. “We talked about this year. We talked about things we did well, things we could do better. We talked about the future, we talked about his player exit interviews and how those conversations went.

“We talked a little bit about his future and what that looks like. We’re going to continue those conversations over the next few days. But as far a lot of the stuff that’s out there publicly, I just think you have to be really careful about what you’re believing, because there’s a lot of bad information out there right now.”

Afterwards, Bianco and his wife, Cami, packed their bags and headed out for the beach condo they own and visit once each season ends, whenever that is. He’ll be gone until Sunday.

So, no, Bianco wasn’t in Baton Rouge earlier this week for an interview. And, no, he’s not expected at LSU for an in-person interview in the next few days, despite previous reporting to the contrary.

He’s entertaining overtures from LSU, to be sure, but he’s handling the process as he has everything else over his 21-year Ole Miss career — practically and professionally. It seems Bianco, and Bianco only, knows what he’s going to do. His assistant coaches are certainly in the dark.

Indisputable is he has the support of Carter.

“I think, honestly, if you look at some of the things we’ve dealt with this year, if you look at 2021 in a vacuum, I think it’s one of the best jobs he’s done,” Carter said. “I really do. I think he did a really good job. If you go out to Arizona and you’ve got Gunnar Hoglund, you’ve probably got a really good chance of winning that series.

"We didn’t. We came up one game short. That’s not our goal. We want to get to Omaha every single year. Mike knows that, I know that. We talked about that. We’ll continue to talk about that. But I would say, overall, winning 45 games with the adversity we had this year was a pretty darn good year.”

Bianco, 54, was an assistant under legendary LSU baseball coach Skip Bertman for three national titles in 1993, ’96 and ’97. Bertman and a strong segment of the older higher-ups on Red Stick want Bianco, and the Tigers’ season ended last weekend, too.

But Bianco is taking his time, and, per sources, his preference is to stay at Ole Miss. Not for nothing, he told LSU no back in 2006. Maybe he doesn’t this time around.

Or, maybe, the end result of what’s stretching into a week-long saga ultimately ends in a simple contract rollover. All but a few of the contract escalators only kick in with appearances in Super Regionals and the College World Series.

For now, Ole Miss and LSU are in a holding pattern.

“Being his alma mater, there’s a job opening, is there some intrigue there? Maybe? Probably? But we didn’t really go that far,” Carter. “Today, we talked about us. We talked about Ole Miss. We talked about what we’re looking to do in the future. We’re going to continue those conversations over the next few days.”

SOURCE: Garrett, Ben. "Keith Carter: 'A lot of bad information out there right now' about Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco." OMSpirit.com, 16 June 2021, https://247sports.com/college/ole-miss/Article/Keith-Carter-A-lot-of-bad-information-out-there-right-now-about-Ole-Miss-head-coach-Mike-Bianco-166642102/