Mike Bianco reveals who makes the final call on jersey assignments each game

The Ole Miss Rebels are still riding the wave of a historic season in their baseball program’s history. On Thursday, they punched their tickets to this weekend’s College World Series Final in Omaha, Nebraska. It will be the first time in Ole Miss baseball history that they’ve played for the national championship. They’re set to face off against the Oklahoma Sooners in a best two-out-of-three series for college baseball’s most coveted prize. On Friday, Rebels head coach Mike Bianco spoke with the media about a popular topic. He discussed in-depth about whether or not the Rebels were going to wear their beautiful powder blue uniforms on Saturday.

“Wow, pressure. Let me explain it so we can really get [specific] — we let the starting pitcher decide. [Dylan] DeLucia usually wears red, and he wore it the whole second half of the season. I can’t believe we’re doing this in a press conference,” Bianco said.

“So when we got to the regional and we had to play the opening game, we had to play Arizona, who was also red and navy, they were the home team, and they got to choose what uniform. So they chose red. And so DeLucia said, Oh, wear navy. So he wore navy, pitched really well, and we won,” the Ole Miss head man said.

“Hunter [Elliott] has always worn navy. So, we wear navy the next day. We wore red in Game 3 in Coral Gables, but then DeLucia, it kind of went that way. And really even [John] Gaddis’s start, the NCAA asked us [our] uniform choice before we chose [the] pitcher. We’ve been pretty good in the navy, I guess we’ll go navy,” Bianco continued.

“So, it’s kind of been that. It’s probably been less superstition than people have said. But I thought we made a rookie mistake the first day when we came for the media, because I forgot we were going to do a lot of video, and I thought, gosh, we should have worn the powder blue because that would have been a little more pop for the ESPN videos and whatnot. So that was really the reason we’re wearing it today, because we wanted to look good,” the Rebels’ head coach said.

The Rebels punched their tickets to the CWS Final after junior Dylan DeLucia pitched a masterpiece of a complete game, shutting out the Arkansas Razorbacks on Thursday for a 2-0 victory. DeLucia spent his first two seasons at Northwest Florida State College. He delivered the goods when his team needed them the most, pitching the first shutout by a SEC pitcher in the College World Series since LSU’s Brett Laxton did it in 1993.

Game 1 of the CWS Final between Ole Miss and the Oklahoma Sooners is set to begin at 7:00 PM EST on Saturday, June 25th. Game 2 between the two teams is set for Sunday, June 26th at 3:00 PM EST. If necessary, Game 3 will be played on Monday, June 27 at 7:00 PM EST. All three games will be nationally televised on ESPN.