OMAHA, Neb. – Winning the national championship validated what was already increasingly obvious. Tennessee is the standard bearer in this era of college baseball.
O First national volunteer title in the sport was the culmination of a seven-year climb from SEC irrelevance to national domain under Tony Vitello, whose team finished its final College World Series run with a 6-5 victory over Texas A&M in the third and decisive game of the final on Monday night.
“We had unfinished business, especially this being the third time we’ve been here in the last four years,” pitcher Zander Sechrist said. “(In) ’21 we didn’t do well, ’22 you could say was the best college baseball team ever, in ’23 we had the experience of winning at least one game here, but the job wasn’t done and in 24 felt a little different.
Different is certainly one way to describe Tennessee’s season.
The Vols’ 60 wins set a Southeastern Conference record and were the most nationally since Florida State had 60 in 2002, and they have lost consecutive games only once. They became the first national seed to win the championship since 1999 and the fourth SEC team to win the regular season, conference tournament and national title in the same year.
Tennessee’s 184 homers ranked second all-time behind LSU’s NCAA record of 188 in 1997 and were the most since bat standards were implemented in 2011 to regulate exit velocity. The Vols’ 37 home runs in the national tournament tied the postseason record set by LSU in 1998. Tennessee was also the first team in Division I history to have five players hit at least 20 home runs in the same season, led by the 34 by Christian Moore.
“I’m glad we finally got to do this. I couldn’t be happier with this program and the way it’s been built,” Sechrist said before noting the presence of athletic director Danny White in the postgame interview room. contract coming soon for coach Vitello.”
Vitello, who still has two years left on his contract that pays him $1.5 million a year, was embraced by the Knoxville crowd from the start.
In 2018, his first season, he set up a lemonade stand outside Lindsey Nelson Stadium to hold a meet-and-greet while serving a two-game suspension for being ejected from a game. At that time, Tennessee averaged 1,721 fans per game, ranking 13th out of 14 SEC teams. This season, there was a capacity of 5,339 people per game in a stadium with a listed capacity of 4,283. Ongoing renovations will increase the number of seats to more than 7,500 next season.
“We have more fans where you don’t have to do lemonade stands,” Vitello said. “It’s fun to progress. And as they say, the journey is what matters. It’s been a fun journey, this year in particular.”
Louis, 45, prepared for the Vols’ head coaching job while serving as an assistant for eight years at his alma mater, Missouri, three years at TCU under Jim Schlossnagle and four years at Arkansas under Dave Van Horn.
Associate head coach and recruiting coordinator Josh Elander and pitching coach Frank Anderson have been with him since early 2017, as have the team’s athletic trainer, video coordinator and director of baseball operations.
When Vitello arrived, the Vols hadn’t been to the NCAA tournament in 12 years and he said the program needed to create an identity to differentiate itself from SEC teams that had or were about to win national titles.
Vitello wanted independent coaches and players, brash guys who played with boldness. In 2022, all that swagger made the Vols a team opposing fans loved to hate. O Vols embraced the villain rolebest illustrated when Jordan Beck raised his middle finger toward the Alabama outfield while coming around on a home run trot.
“We had a theme that we needed to find a way to make it work. And that freight train started moving and never slowed down until it was really out of control, to be honest with you,” Vittelo said. “But that was our niche. We have to play with some attitude. We have to play with a little courage.”
Meanwhile, Vitello and his staff have raised the talent bar with successive recruiting classes, each ranked among the top 15 in the country, including a 2024 class that is No. 1.
This year’s team has potential first-round picks in Moore and Billy Amick and projected second-round picks in Drew Beam, Blake Burke and Kavares Tears and Dylan Dreiling.
Vitello and his team won’t have much time to celebrate if they want to maintain their place at the top of the SEC, let alone the country. So there are recruiting visits to set up, a transfer portal to navigate, and roster adjustments to make depending on what happens in next month’s Major League Baseball amateur draft.
“We have all the resources in the world where we are, but it’s a place where we’ve had to build a foundation to catch up, again, with some of these other historic programs,” Vitello said. “You never get to a point where you can look down on everyone because the minute you do, you’ll probably take a superior blow in one, if not several places.”
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