Tony Vitello pushes back on idea Tennessee didn't reach its potential this season

After winning the College World Series in 2024, the Tennessee Volunteers failed to get back to Omaha in 2025. Despite that, head coach Tony Vitello pushed back following their Super Regional loss that this year’s team failed to live up to its potential.

Following the game, Tennessee players were asked their perspective on not reaching Tennessee’s potential. After taking a second to gather their thoughts, Vitello cut in and answered the question first.

“I’ll speak for them,” Tony Vitello said. “Potential is a pretty vague word, and there’s no reason that team on the field that we just played can’t win the last game of the year. So, I think if we fell short of our potential, that’s kind of hard — again, it’s vague.”

Tennessee traveled to Fayetteville for the Super Regional after winning the Knoxville Regional. There, they ran into an excellent Arkansas team that came into the season with massive expectations as well. Tensions were high, but the Volunteers weren’t able to win a game, dropping a one-run game on Saturday before letting things get away from them on Sunday in what turned out to be their last game of the season.

“I think where we fell short was in some series against the best teams in the country,” Vitello said. “But at the same time — you know, the winning percentage if you want to break it down, I think we had the same amount of wins going into yesterday’s game as they [Arkansas] did. We had more wins than the team [Texas] that won the league this year.”

Tennessee finished the season at 46-19 with a 16-14 record in SEC play. They’d go to the Super Regional, where their struggles in road games this season reared its ugly head. Still, it also became the first time since 2022 that they failed to make the College World Series.

“So, trust me, I got as high a standards as anybody, but my closing words — none of them were any good — to the guys were, I hope they take pride in what they did this year and kind of what they put together. First of all, you should have fun, and you should make the workplace a good place. You’re going to be a teammate a lot longer than you’re going to be a player. But also, you should do some things out on the field, and our guys will remember today all day long,” Vitello said. “But I hope when they wake up tomorrow morning they remember that last game at Lindsay Nelson stadium that they won. There’s not many teams that have been able to say that, that they played their last game in Lindsey Nelson Stadium and won it. And, obviously, I’m not talking about game 56.”

The reality is that Tennessee has had some of its best seasons under Tony Vitello. It was under him that the Volunteers won their first and only baseball national championship. They’ve also made three out of their seven all-time appearances in the College World Series under Vitello. He’s the reason why expectations are so high in Knoxville and it’s safe to say he’ll have a team ready to meet them again in 2026.