Ole Miss head baseball coach Mike Bianco

Interim athletic director Keith Carter made the decision to not extend the contract of head baseball coach Mike Bianco to a customary fourth year following the 2019 season in which the Rebels' ended their campaign in a three-game Super Regional at Arkansas.

The Ole Miss Spirit's Ben Garrett first reported the news last Thursday. State law prohibits contracts being longer than four years.

Carter recently expounded upon that decision in an interview with the Spirit.

"It was a decision that I made, and it was not a decision that was made lightly," Carter told the Spirit.

Bianco has been at the helm of the Ole Miss baseball program for 19 years. Though he has guided the Rebels to 16 postseason appearances and six Super Regional berths during that span, he has taken the program to Omaha and the College World Series only once. With all due and deserved respect to the winningest baseball coach in Ole Miss history, that lack of appearances in Omaha is the fly in the ointment.

"He has a great reputation and runs a model program," Carter continued, "and there are so many things about Mike that I admire. I want to make sure that we continue to support him. He has every resource available to improve in the postseason and try to get over that hump and get to Omaha more consistently."

The Rebels' lone Omaha appearance under Bianco came in 2014. Ole Miss won games versus Texas Tech and TCU but lost twice to Virginia, finishing tied for third.

In 2016, under Bianco, the Rebels signed the nation's No. 1 ranked recruiting class. That class is now mostly gone, and it left without ever advancing to Omaha.

"I felt like as an institution and as an athletic department that we just needed to pause on the extension there and put that on hold," Carter continued. "Maybe that puts us in a little bit better position as an athletic department and as an institution financially. I just wanted to make sure that we were making decisions that were fiscally responsible and the right decisions for our department."

Carter expressed he is in Bianco's corner moving ahead.

"Back to Mike. We want to make sure that we're there for him. We made sure that we kept his staff intact. Anything he needs from us, we want to help him. We want to be a part of the solution and figure out the little nuances that might be able to get us over the hump and become more successful in the late postseason so we can spend a little more time in Omaha." said Carter.

Ole Miss finished the 2019 season with an overall record of 41-27. The Rebels finished ranked No. 13 in the final Baseball America Top 25 poll.