Category Archives: Baseball

Last Monday, we did some research on how the 2022-23 Vols finished in the Top 16 in football, men’s & women’s basketball, baseball and softball for the first time in school history. That ride ain’t over just yet:

When we say everything …

we mean everything. pic.twitter.com/mK0IfaI6dM

— Tennessee Athletics (@Vol_Sports) June 13, 2023

Baseball always has the opportunity for the last word on an academic year, and the Vols are in Omaha for the second time in three years. We’re still adjusting on the fly when it comes to regular expectations and Tony Vitello’s squad, but here’s a version of a list we’ve had the pleasure of looking at in each of the last three Junes. As you’ll see, the Vols don’t have to be last season’s #1 landlords to make history.

Last Three Super Regional Appearances

• Alabama: 2023, 2010, 2006
• Arkansas: 2022, 2021, 2019
• Auburn: 2022, 2019, 2018
• Florida: 2023, 2018, 2017
• Georgia: 2008, 2006, 2004
• Kentucky: 2023, 2017 (two total appearances)
• LSU: 2023, 2021, 2019
• Ole Miss: 2022, 2021, 2019
• Mississippi State: 2021, 2019, 2018
• Missouri: no appearances
• South Carolina: 2023, 2018, 2016
• Tennessee: 2023, 2022, 2021
• Texas A&M: 2022, 2017, 2016
• Vanderbilt: 2021, 2019, 2018

Tennessee is the only SEC team to make the super regionals the last three years in a row.

How often do these teams get to Omaha? Here’s that list since the super regional format changed in 1999:

College World Series Appearances (since 1999)

• 9: Florida (last in 2023), LSU (2023)
• 7: Arkansas (2022)
• 6: South Carolina (2012)
• 5: Mississippi State (2021), Vanderbilt (2021)
• 4: Georgia (2008), Tennessee (2023), Texas A&M (2022)
• 2: Auburn (2022), Ole Miss (2022)
• 1: Alabama (1999)
• 0: Kentucky, Missouri

Let’s zoom in here:

Last Two College World Series Appearances

• Alabama: 1999, 1997
• Arkansas: 2022, 2019
• Auburn: 2022, 2019
• Florida: 2023, 2018 (four straight from 2015-18)
• Georgia: 2008, 2006
• Kentucky: never
• LSU: 2023, 2017
• Ole Miss: 2022, 2014
• Mississippi State: 2021, 2019 (three straight 2018-21)
• Missouri: 1964, 1963 (three straight 1962-64)
• South Carolina: 2012, 2011 (three straight 2010-12)
• Tennessee: 2023, 2021
• Texas A&M: 2022, 2017
• Vanderbilt: 2021, 2019

Tennessee is the only SEC team to make it to Omaha two of the last three years.

And here’s the biggest list of all, one more time:

National Championships

• Florida: 2017
• Georgia: 1990
• LSU: 2009, 2000, 1997, 1996, 1993, 1991
• Ole Miss: 2022
• Mississippi State: 2021
• Missouri: 1954
• South Carolina: 2011, 2010
• Vanderbilt: 2019, 2014
• Still waiting: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas A&M

That’s a real thing that’s out there, again. Win a game in Omaha, and you’ll have the program’s first victory in the College World series since 2001. Win more, and more history is always out there.

What a fitting finale to this incredible year.

Go Vols.

There is no hurt like “we had a chance to win it all” hurt. The pain is a privilege.

This, of course, was not, “Tennessee fans think they have a chance to win it all, but…”. These baseball Vols were number one for months, consistently the best in a way only the Lady Vols can compare to in our own modern history. And whatever your list of most painful Lady Vol losses, they are at least somewhat cushioned by the eight times we didn’t lose.

I’m unqualified to speak on what’s atop that list, and unqualified to speak in fullness of this baseball team. I didn’t watch every game or break down every scenario the way it goes for football and men’s basketball.

But this team made me want to. I bet I’m not alone on that one. And that can pay off nicely for the entire program.

When we do turn to those more familiar endeavors, to me there is no question when discussing which losses are most painful. In football, it’s 2001 in Atlanta, ranked second in the nation and a second half away from playing for a second BCS title in four years.

In basketball, the Vols have never climbed as high when postseason play began, and our losses as two-seeds always seemed easier to understand (even when the reason is, “Ryan Cline hit seven threes.”). To me, the most painful basketball loss is still 2000 North Carolina in the Sweet 16. Those Vols were only a four seed. But the bracket broke wide open, and Tennessee was the highest remaining seed in the region entering the Sweet 16.

There will always be a part of my brain that clings to a 17-7 lead over LSU in the second quarter. There will always be a part that’s up seven with 4:30 to play against North Carolina. And we may indeed find ourselves drawn back to a 3-1 lead on Notre Dame with two outs in the Top of the 7th.

There is no hurt like having a team that can win it all lose a game with a chance to win. The price of courting the mountaintop is the distance you can fall.

And yet, you wouldn’t ask to be anywhere else. For many years, we haven’t even had the option.

Every season tells a story, and I believe you can find something meaningful in all of them. Sometimes it’s your basketball team scratching and clawing to make the NIT (see also: Hamer, Steve). Sometimes it’s a football team leaping back toward relevance much faster than you thought they would.

You hope, of course, that all that meaning is pointed toward the mountaintop. And when you can see it from there – really, truly see it, almost close enough to touch – a fall is going to hurt, like nothing else.

But we’ll climb again.

To what end, we never know for sure. Twenty-one years later, football is yet to come closer to the mountaintop than that night in Atlanta. But from that North Carolina loss in basketball, our best days were ahead of us and not behind.

I’m really grateful to this baseball team, in joining with last year’s to establish an entirely new rhythm for our entire fanbase. What used to be an eight month football offseason has blossomed into championship-caliber programs in basketball and baseball, ground their counterparts on the women’s side have already broken. Now, there are present-tense reasons to invest in Tennessee in almost every month of the year.

This one ended a week too soon. But they established a presence that can carry these spring and summer weeks for years to come.

Go Vols.

One of the most interesting and most difficult questions to answer right now is, “What is a successful outcome for this Tennessee baseball team?”

When you’ve been number one for months and you find yourself in best. team. ever. conversations, there’s a version of this answer that goes national championship or bust. That, of course, is a dangerous game to play anytime, but especially given Tennessee’s overall baseball history. The Vols have only been to Omaha four times since 1951, and their last two trips in 2005 and 2021 came with no victories. Win a single game in the College World Series, and you’ve advanced farther than any Tennessee team since 2001. Win two, and you’ve equaled the 1995 Vols as the best of the modern era. (That 1951 squad made the finals out of the loser’s bracket before falling to Oklahoma.)

So there’s a whole conversation about this Tennessee team, one we may not revisit anytime soon. I assume the Vols will continue to compete for championships under Tony Vitello’s leadership. Assuming we’ll see something like this year, every year? That’s less likely, and more reason to celebrate what’s in front of us.

But in the conversation about Tennessee as a program, the Vols are currently achieving on a level the best of the SEC has enjoyed for the last 20+ years.

A year ago this week, when all of this was even more new, we looked at what regular success might look like in baseball. Here’s an updated version of two of those charts, with data via wikipedia:

Super Regional appearances (since 1999)

• 15: LSU (last in 2021)
• 13: South Carolina (2018)
• 10: Arkansas (2022), Florida (2018), Mississippi State (2021), Vanderbilt (2021)
• 9: Texas A&M (2022)
• 8: Ole Miss (2022)
• 4: Auburn (2022), Georgia (2008), Tennessee (2022)
• 3: Alabama (2010)
• 1: Kentucky (2017)
• 0: Missouri

Here again, the history of the best SEC programs under this format suggests making the Super Regionals 2-of-3 years is a good goal. No one does it every year. But if you’re doing it right, you’re getting this far more often than not.

Let’s zoom in here:

Last Two Super Regional Appearances

• Alabama: 2010, 2006
• Arkansas: 2022, 2021
• Auburn: 2022, 2019
• Florida: 2018, 2017
• Georgia: 2008, 2006
• Kentucky: one appearance (2017)
• LSU: 2021, 2019
• Ole Miss: 2022, 2021
• Mississippi State: 2021, 2019
• Missouri: no appearances
• South Carolina: 2018, 2016
• Tennessee: 2022, 2021
• Texas A&M: 2022, 2017
• Vanderbilt: 2021, 2019

SEC teams making it two straight Super Regionals this week: Arkansas, Ole Miss, Tennessee. Others hitting the two-in-three-years threshold: Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt. That’s half the league.

Here’s the next part:

College World Series appearances (since 1999)

• 8: Florida (last in 2018), LSU (2017)
• 6: Arkansas (2019), South Carolina (2012)
• 5: Mississippi State (2021), Vanderbilt (2021)
• 4: Georgia (2008)
• 3: Tennessee (2022), Texas A&M (2017)
• 1: Alabama (1999), Auburn (2019), Ole Miss (2014)
• 0: Kentucky, Missouri

Appearing at least once in the last three years: Arkansas, Auburn, Mississippi State, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt. Ole Miss and Texas A&M can join that list over the weekend. If so, that would again be half the league.

Zooming out here, should the Vols go back-to-back:

Last Two College World Series Appearances

• Alabama: 1999, 1997
• Arkansas: 2019, 2018
• Auburn: 2019, 1997
• Florida: 2018, 2017 (four straight back to 2015)
• Georgia: 2008, 2006
• Kentucky: never
• LSU: 2017, 2015
• Ole Miss: 2014, 1972
• Mississippi State: 2021, 2019 (three straight back to 2018)
• Missouri: 1964, 1963 (three straight back to 1962)
• South Carolina: 2012, 2011 (three straight back to 2010)
• Tennessee: 2021, 2005
• Texas A&M: 2017, 2011
• Vanderbilt: 2021, 2019

With Mississippi State failing to make the field and Vanderbilt out, the Vols would be the only SEC team with an active two-year streak in the College World Series, if they get past Notre Dame. They would become the sixth SEC team to pull off two straight trips to Omaha this century.

And here’s the most fun list of all:

National Championships

• Florida: 2017
• Georgia: 1990
• LSU: 2009, 2000, 1997, 1996, 1993, 1991
• Mississippi State: 2021
• Missouri: 1954
• South Carolina: 2011, 2010
• Vanderbilt: 2019, 2014
• Still waiting: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Texas A&M

SEC teams have won seven of the last twelve championships, and three of the last four. Arkansas just missed in 2018. Five teams are still alive in these Super Regionals to continue those trends.

As a program, Tennessee is on pace with top-tier success for an SEC program over the last two years. The Vols are one of three programs to make back-to-back Super Regionals, and can become the only SEC program to make the College World Series in 2021 and 2022. Winning it would make them the fourth SEC team to bring home a ring in the last five years. The league is very good at this.

Which continues to make what this particular Tennessee team is accomplishing all the more impressive.

Onward and upward. Go Vols.

If I asked you to guess where Tennessee ranked in SEC Championships in the five biggest sports (football, men’s & women’s basketball, baseball, softball) in the last ten years, what would you say?

We know football is still working on the comeback. We know the Lady Vols aren’t at the peak of their powers. It’s easy for the gray skies of football to cloud the perception of the whole over the last ten years, especially when there’s not a dominant alternative in women’s basketball or elsewhere.

How do the Vols rank in regular season SEC titles in the big five sports over the last ten years?

Tied for fourth.

SEC Regular Season Championships since 2012 Expansion

Since 2012	Football	Men’s Bball	Women’s Bball	Baseball	Softball	Total
Florida	0	2	0	3	6	11
Alabama	7	1	0	0	2	10
South Carolina	0	0	6	0	0	6
Kentucky	0	4	0	0	0	4
LSU	1	1	0	2	0	4
Tennessee	0	1	2	1	0	4
Arkansas	0	0	0	1	2	3
Auburn	1	2	0	0	0	3
Mississippi State	0	0	2	1	0	3
Texas A&M	0	1	1	0	0	2
Vanderbilt	0	0	0	2	0	2
Georgia	1	0	0	0	0	1
Missouri	0	0	0	0	0	0
Ole Miss	0	0	0	0	0	0

(data via wikipedia)

The Gators lead the way via spring dominance. Alabama football continues to be the most dominant program in the conference among these five sports, followed closely by Florida softball and South Carolina women’s basketball. Those six for the Gamecocks pull them ahead of 11 other schools in the league by themselves.

But Tennessee’s four regular season SEC titles since expansion are next, tied with Kentucky and LSU. The Lady Vols won the league in 2013 and 2015. Men’s basketball won in 2018. And the baseball team just secured the regular season crown.

Texas A&M has won a pair of conference titles in the big five sports since joining the league. Missouri has won zero. Ole Miss has nothing in the last ten years. And Georgia’s 2017 SEC title is their only mark on the board (though I’m sure they’ll take the trade with Alabama from this past fall).

Only Florida, Alabama, LSU, and Tennessee have won regular season titles in at least three sports in the last ten years. Winning is hard!

It’s an amazing thing to be able to have the, “This is as healthy as our athletic department has been since _________,” conversation right now. For those of us who are old enough to remember, the answer to that question came with a level of success in both football and women’s basketball that may not be repeatable year after year in the current climate. We’ll see.

Either way, what’s happening right now is indeed remarkable, and becomes more so as you expand outward:

This is based on the 9 sports the SEC tracks W/L records & has at least 13 conference members playing in. (Football, men’s/women’s basketball, baseball, softball, men’s/women’s tennis, volleyball, & soccer).

via: @SECFootballVids

— Saturday Down South (@SatDownSouth) May 23, 2022

It’s also a consistent reflection of who Tennessee has been going backwards:

SEC Regular Season Championships since 1992 Expansion

Since 1992	Football	Men’s Bball	Women’s Bball	Baseball	Softball	Total
Florida	7	6	0	8	9	30
LSU	5	4	3	9	5	26
Tennessee	2	3	15	3	1	24
Alabama	10	2	0	2	6	20
Kentucky	0	13	1	1	0	15
Georgia	3	0	3	3	2	11
South Carolina	0	1	6	3	1	11
Auburn	3	3	1	0	0	7
Arkansas	0	2	0	3	2	7
Vanderbilt	0	1	0	4	0	5
Mississippi State	0	1	2	1	0	4
Ole Miss	0	0	1	1	0	2
Texas A&M	0	1	1	0	0	2
Missouri	0	0	0	0	0	0

(SEC softball began play in 1997)

Take it all the way back to when women’s basketball began in this league in 1980:

SEC Regular Season Championships since 1980

Since 1980	Football	Men’s Bball	Women’s Bball	Baseball	Softball	Total
Florida	8	7	0	11	9	35
LSU	7	7	3	13	5	35
Tennessee	5	4	18	3	1	31
Alabama	12	3	0	3	6	24
Kentucky	0	21	2	1	0	24
Georgia	6	1	7	3	2	19
Auburn	7	3	5	0	0	15
South Carolina	0	1	6	3	1	11
Mississippi State	0	2	2	4	0	8
Arkansas	0	2	0	3	2	7
Vanderbilt	0	1	0	5	0	6
Ole Miss	0	0	1	1	0	2
Texas A&M	0	1	1	0	0	2
Missouri	0	0	0	0	0	0

The only schools to win a championship in all five sports: LSU, Tennessee, and Georgia.

Winning is hard!

A couple of other fun notes from this chart:

• The least balanced sport in the conference is football. Since 1980, you’ve got haves and have-nots: the six traditional powers all won at least five regular season titles, and no one else has won any. The last time someone other than those six schools won the SEC: Ole Miss in 1963.
• As dominant as Alabama seems in football now, they’ve got little on Kentucky basketball and the Lady Vols.
• In men’s basketball, everyone other than Ole Miss and Missouri has won the league at least once since 1980. There’s a similar truth in baseball, with everyone other than Auburn and the new guys from A&M and Missouri taking home at least one prize.

Tennessee has always had a top-rate athletic department in this league, competing for and winning championships in almost every sport. That’s the goal, right?

And right now, even without the full firepower of football or a women’s basketball program that defined the sport? Things have still been pretty good overall, and are trending healthier every day.

Winning is hard. And overall, Tennessee might be better at it than we give them credit for.

Tennessee’s baseball team begins its final regular season series today at Mississippi State. The defending national champs have struggled this season, 9-18 in league play and fighting to make the SEC Tournament next week. Meanwhile, Tennessee already clinched the SEC title at 22-5, five games up on Arkansas. The Vols are 45-7 overall, the only team in the Top 25 (and, I assume, the nation) with single-digit losses on the year.

We looked last week at the relevant history this baseball team is chasing. It can feel a bit this week like history is the only remaining prize until postseason play begins. But there’s plenty of that to go around, starting with:

Most SEC Regular Season wins (Current 30-game format, 1996-2022)

1. 26 – 2013 Vanderbilt
2. 25 – 2000 South Carolina
3. 23 – 2019 Vanderbilt
4. 22 – 2022 Tennessee (tied with eight others, three games to play)

Avoid getting swept, and the Vols will have one of the three best regular season records in the SEC in the last 26 years. Sweep the Bulldogs, and the Vols will tie South Carolina for the second-best regular season record in that span.

An obvious truth that bears repeating here: the SEC is good. Like, really good. So anytime you win it – not just in baseball, but in any sport – you celebrate like crazy.

The Vols earned their third SEC regular season championship since 1994 and just their fourth ever. Those Todd Helton teams that went back-to-back in ’94 and ’95 won the SEC by 2 and 1.5 games respectively. The current squad is up five with three to play. There could be more available history here too:

SEC Baseball Largest Championship Margin (Current format)

1. 5.5 games – 2000 South Carolina
2. 5 games – 2022 Tennessee (three to play)
3. 4 games – 2007 Vanderbilt
4. 3.5 games – 2013 Vanderbilt

Again: celebrate this team because it won the SEC Championship, because that’s incredibly hard to do by itself! But in the midst of that, we’re seeing one of the best regular seasons of any SEC team in the last three decades…which automatically makes it one of the best regular seasons we’ve ever seen on this campus.

In the five biggest sports on campus, here’s how hard it is to win an SEC title:

Tennessee’s SEC Championships since 1980

• Football: 5 SEC Championships since 1985
• Men’s Basketball: 4 SEC Championships since 1982
• Baseball: 3 SEC Championships since 1994
• Softball: 1 SEC Championship in 2007

Wait for it:

• Women’s Basketball: 18 SEC Championships since 1980

Okay, hard for almost everyone. That’s 18 for Lady Vol basketball, 13 for the other four biggest sports combined. Word.

So this baseball team is already on a short list on campus, one worthy of celebration no matter what happens in the postseason. Just how high up that list might they go?

Again: the SEC is good. It’s hard to win championships, and even with your best-of-the-best teams, the margins are thin. We often speak of this when some of our very best teams – most recently 2019 men’s basketball – happen to coincide with some of the very best teams at other schools in the same year. The Grant/Admiral ’19 squad went 15-3 in the SEC – two games better than the previous year’s league champions – but LSU went 16-2. See also Spurrier, Steve, etc.

When the Vols have won those regular season championships, it wasn’t easy even with our very best teams. Consider the margins for those champions:

Football

• 1985: Tied Florida at 5-1, Gators on probation (Florida won head-to-head 17-10)
• 1989: Three-way-tie with Alabama & Auburn (Vols beat Auburn, Auburn beat Bama, Bama beat Vols)
• 1990: Florida 6-1, Vols 5-1-1, Gators on probation (Vols won head-to-head 45-3)
• 1997: SEC East Vols 7-1, Florida & UGA 6-2. Vols beat Auburn 30-29 in Atlanta.
• 1998: SEC East Vols 8-0, Florida 7-1. Vols beat Mississippi State 24-14 in Atlanta.

With the exception of 1998, every one of those championships was a margin of one game or a split title. The ’98 Vols had the minimum two-game cushion an undefeated season provides in the division, but that was an elite Florida squad we almost saw again in the Fiesta Bowl. And nothing was ever easy for us in the Georgia Dome. Winning is hard.

Men’s Basketball

• 1982: Tied with Kentucky
• 2000: Four-way-tie with Florida, Kentucky & LSU
• 2008: Vols 14-2, two games over Kentucky & Mississippi State at 12-4
• 2018: Tied with Auburn

Here again, only one of these outcomes had any cushion whatsoever. The 2008 Vols lost at Rupp Arena, and fell to Memorial Magic in the ultimate trap game. Their KenPom rating isn’t as high as the 2019 (or 2022) teams, but they secured the program’s only outright SEC title in my lifetime. Winning is hard!

Baseball

• 1994: Won by 2 games
• 1995: Won by 1.5 games
• 2022: Up 5 with 3 to play

Softball

• 2007: Swept a double-header vs Alabama on the last day of the regular season to win

Winning is hard!

You have the opportunity for larger margins with more games being played, of course, so a dominant baseball or softball team can look stronger just by the margin. But as we’ve seen, only three SEC baseball teams have won the regular season title by more than three games in the last 26 years. In softball, that 2007 team featured Monica Abbott and was a 10-inning loss away from a national championship. But they needed the final day of the season to win the SEC title.

The ultimate conversation about “best team ever” will be heavily influenced by what happens in the postseason, and rightfully so. But right now, I think you’d put this baseball team on a very, very short list…and one that’s doing to include lots of:

Women’s Basketball

Consider that the Lady Vols won the SEC regular season title by at least three games 10 times from 1995-2011 under Pat Summitt. The record there actually belongs to that 2011 squad: a 16-0 regular season champ, five games ahead of the field. They also won the SEC Tournament, before falling to Notre Dame in the Elite Eight.

Tennessee also won the regular season title by four games in 1998, 2004, and 2010. It’s that ’98 squad that will lead the way in any conversation about dominance: 39-0, with a third straight national championship. I count three single-digit wins in those 39 games: the regular season and SEC Tournament matchups with Alabama, and the Elite Eight comeback over North Carolina. So yeah: the dominance of that group may not be threatened in our lifetimes.

But as we move to the end of the regular season, this baseball team has put themselves in position to enter the holy of holies on campus. It is no exaggeration to put their regular season dominance in the conversation with 1998 football, 2008 men’s basketball, and a host of Lady Vol squads. If they continue to live into their number one ranking, we’ll continue to enjoy riding some outrageous trains of thought about the best teams to ever do it on this campus.

There is lots of fun left to be had here.

Go Vols.

A series loss at Kentucky may have slowed the momentum, but the Vols remain number one in three different polls. Seven weeks atop the polls means the baseball program has now spent more time at number one than our men’s basketball program all-time. And Tennessee locked up the SEC East title over the weekend as well.

Much of Tennessee’s chase within itself goes back to the Todd Helton glory days of 1994-95. Those are the program’s last two league championships, and join 1993 as three straight SEC Tournament titles. The Vols are four games up on Arkansas with six to play, closing at home vs Georgia (13-11 SEC) and at Mississippi State (9-15). Arkansas is home vs Vanderbilt (12-12) and at Alabama (10-14). The Vols and Hogs do not meet in the regular season, which will surely make things spicy should we run into each other in the SEC Tournament. But Tennessee not only controls its own destiny to win the league, but can do so at home this weekend via sweep even if Arkansas does the same.

The more interesting history, at least for the next two weeks, is how far up the recent SEC leaderboard this team can climb.

Those 94-95 Vols were the last of an old scheduling model, which saw each SEC team play eight regular season series, then added the SEC Tournament results to the totals to determine the overall league champion (weird!). The Vols finished 24-5 in 1994 and 22-8 in 1995. Since 1996, SEC teams have played a 30-game, 10-series league schedule. The format held through the additions of Missouri and Texas A&M.

The Vols are currently 20-4 in league play. Under the 30-game format, here are the best to ever do it in this league (records via Wikipedia):

SEC Baseball Best Regular Season Records, 1996-2021

Year	Champion	Record	Pct.	Finish
2013	Vanderbilt	26-3	0.897	Super Regionals
2000	South Carolina	25-5	0.833	Super Regionals
2019	Vanderbilt	23-7	0.767	National Champs
1997	LSU	22-7	0.759	National Champs
1999	Arkansas	22-8	0.733	Regionals
2007	Vanderbilt	22-8	0.733	Regional Finals
2010	Florida	22-8	0.733	College World Series
2011	FLA, SC, Vandy	22-8	0.733	CWS Finals, Champs, CWS
2021	Arkansas	22-8	0.733	Super Regionals

So a 5-1 finish for Tennessee would tie 2000 South Carolina as the second-best SEC regular season of the last 26 years. Sweep the next two weekends, and the Vols will tie 2013 Vanderbilt with a best-ever 26 regular season wins.

You’ll also notice, of course, how the situation changes in a hurry. We haven’t been doing this great-at-baseball thing very long, but it looks more like the college basketball conversation every day. Play for and make the breaks as much as you can in the regular season, and celebrate like crazy when you do…and then, when the tournament comes our way, try to score. But there are no guarantees you will.

The 1994 Vols were bounced in the regional finals by Arizona State. The 1995 Vols made it to the College World Series and won a couple of games before bowing out to the eventual champs from Cal State Fullerton. Tennessee also went back to Omaha in 2001, 2005, and last season despite not winning the SEC.

Those two very best teams of the 30-game era? They were both bounced at home in the super regionals. In 2000, South Carolina was the number one overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, swept their way to the super regionals, and beat Louisiana Lafayette 6-3 in the first game. But they fell 7-1 and 3-2 in the next two, coming one win shy of Omaha.

In 2013, a Vanderbilt team with Dansby Swanson and Walker Buehler spent the last five weeks of the regular season ranked #1 or #2, and were the #2 overall seed at tournament time. But they fell to Louisville in two straight games in the super regionals, 5-3 and 2-1.

We watched this happen to Arkansas last year: number one overall seed, beat NC State 21-2 in the opener of the super regional…then lost a pair of one-run games, and it’s over.

Of the 11 SEC teams to win at least 22 regular season games in the last 26 years, only six made it to Omaha. Only three of them won it all. There are no guarantees.

We looked last summer at what regular success in baseball might look like. Half the SEC has made it to Omaha in the last four years; it’s a good expectation for every player to come into your program as a freshman to get there at some point in his career. But making it every year just doesn’t happen, even in this conference:

College World Series appearances (since 1999)

• 8: Florida (last in 2018), LSU (2017)
• 6: Arkansas (2019), South Carolina (2012)
• 5: Mississippi State (2021), Vanderbilt (2021)
• 4: Georgia (2008)
• 3: Tennessee (2021), Texas A&M (2017)
• 1: Alabama (1999), Auburn (2019), Ole Miss (2014)
• 0: Kentucky, Missouri

We’ll get to that in about three weeks. For now, there is plenty of history and an SEC Championship available for this team in the regular season. We should celebrate that like there’s no tomorrow. And when tomorrow does come, this team will have given itself a great opportunity to make even more history.

Go Vols.

Midweek loss aside, Tennessee should have every opportunity to remain at number one for a fourth straight week if they take care of business against Alabama this weekend. The Vols are 31-2, unanimously atop the polls. Depending on who you ask, Miami (26-6) or Oregon State (24-7) is behind them at number two. It’s a scenario we’re not overly accustomed to in college polls: the number one team seems so far ahead of the pack, how many losses would it take to unseat them?

There is much about this baseball run we’re not overly accustomed to, including the stay atop the polls. Three weeks at number one puts the baseball program here in range of men’s basketball, with five total weeks at number one in its history (one from 2008, four from 2019). Shout out to College Poll Archive for the data, which tells us the football team has spent 18 total weeks at number one, most recently in the last six weeks of the 1998 season. Lady Vol softball also spent time at number one in 2007 and 2014.

There’s still, uh, a ways to go to catch Lady Vol basketball, with 112 total weeks at number one.

For baseball, it’s not just the length of stay at number one. It’s the gap this team closed, with the quickness, in arriving there.

In college baseball’s myriad preseason polls, the Vols were ranked anywhere from 16th to 21st. If you start at the bottom, with Perfect Game’s #21 preseason ranking, the Vols have made a jump of +20 in the polls. That’s never been done here in men’s basketball*, and has only happened twice in the Top 25 era in football. Good news on both fronts there: in 1985 and 1989, Tennessee was unranked at the start of the season. Both years ended with an SEC Championship and a Top 5 finish.

*(One update: the 2006 basketball team started the season unranked, then jumped as high as eighth, a theoretical gain of at least +18. I should’ve included them here – Bruce Pearl’s first group is an obvious contender for massively exceeding preseason expectations.)

If you just take the +15 jump from a preseason ranking of 16th in the USA Today and NCBWA polls, we’re still in incredibly rare airspace. In men’s basketball, a +15 jump in the polls has happened only once: 2011, when the Vols opened the year at 23rd before starting 7-0, taking down Villanova to win the preseason NIT and Pittsburgh on the road. The Vols were seventh in the AP poll on December 13, a +16 jump. It went south from there in Bruce Pearl’s final season.

A couple of honorable mentions here:

• The 2000 Vols started 19th but went as high as 5th, a +14 jump. They finished 11th, with an SEC Championship and the program’s first Sweet 16 in the 64-team format.
• The team we just said goodbye to started 18th, but was 5th in the final poll headed into the NCAA Tournament, fresh off an SEC Tournament title, for a +13 jump.

In football, the Vols have only made four +15 jumps in the Top 25 era:

• 1985: Started unranked, finished fourth with an SEC Championship
• 1989: Started unranked, finished fifth with an SEC Championship
• 1992: Started 21st, and were ranked 4th on October 6 after a 5-0 start with wins over #14 Georgia and #4 Florida. That +17 jump was followed by three straight losses by a total of nine points, a wild year that led to the transition from Johnny Majors to Phillip Fulmer.
• 2006: Started 23rd, but jumped to 11th in one week after dismantling #9 Cal in the season opener. The Vols went to 7th on October 15 after beating Georgia 51-33 in Athens for a +16 jump from preseason. Tennessee was still 8th and 7-1 overall facing #13 LSU on the first Saturday in November. Injuries disrupted the finish from there.

So in both weeks at number one and the rise from preseason expectations, this baseball team is working in uncharted territory. And there may be more where that came from this season.

Tennessee’s season came to an end in Omaha yesterday, a second loss in two chances at the College World Series. There’s a significant percentage of this conversation that now has to wait, holding its breath for Tony Vitello and Danny White to emerge at the same press conference instead of in two different locations. We’ll see.

But in the ways one’s season can come to an end in college baseball, you always prefer Nebraska. Especially when you haven’t seen anything like it in 16 years.

When a fanbase is molded by a football team that chases the biggest prize every year and reinforced by a women’s basketball team that wins it eight times, it’s easier for other sports to carry an unnecessary burden. Rick Barnes isn’t the first men’s basketball coach whose teams felt undue angst over a regular season loss. Bruce Pearl’s Elite Eight squad generated some of those questions too, even when losing to ranked opponents.

Pearl’s first team, now 15 years ago, is probably the closest comparison to what Tony Vitello is doing right now. They lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament as a two seed, but that individual defeat to Wichita State is probably Tennessee’s least painful exit in March of my lifetime. It wasn’t just that we were happy to be there. It was that, in the moment, we could believe we’d be there from now on.

Not the Sweet 16 or Omaha every year, no one does that. But to be in the hunt, in the conversation every year? That can be done. And that’s a gift. Because no one wins the whole thing every single year – not Bama, not Pat Summitt, no one – so I think the chase becomes the healthiest goal. We know we’re in the chase with Rick Barnes. We’ve been in the chase in softball for a long time now. And that’s the hope this baseball team produced: not a one-off story, but an opening chapter.

And man, what a great chapter it was. When Drew Gilbert hit that walk-off grand slam against Wright State, I leapt in our bedroom. Like, “Watch the ceiling fan, don’t wake up the kids,” leapt. For Tennessee baseball.

I’ve got clothing with the word “Omaha” on it. Lindsey Nelson Stadium will always have 2021 on it. This team will be remembered forever regardless. But they also have a chanced to be linked to a much larger story.

Make no mistake: the losses will probably hurt more from here. That’s part of the deal. It’s hard to equate it in football, because in that sport the losses that tended to hurt Tennessee most came in September or October. Not everyone has to lose their last game, though we’re headed more in that direction with the playoff.

Basketball again provides some context. Sometimes you still just get beat by a better team, as happened to Bruce Pearl’s squad a couple years later in 2008. Sometimes you lose in heartbreaking fashion, but then get to avenge it a few years later (see: Ohio State). And some of those losses just linger in the fog of “what if”, watching the bracket fall apart around you and dreaming about the kind of run you could’ve made in 2000 or 2018.

Baseball will take all that and include far more volatility, even in a double elimination format. There are no secrets or surprises in building the bracket: the best teams will always rise to the top over a long regular season. But once you’re there, it doesn’t take much to turn the whole thing sideways. A hot pitcher, an umpire’s call, a ball inches from being fair instead of foul. Right now there are six teams left standing in Omaha. The two left in the winner’s bracket are unseeded and #7. #4 Vanderbilt faces elimination today; #2 Texas will face it again tomorrow. Arkansas, as you know, didn’t even make it.

You can’t predict it. But you can be in it. The hunt is what you hope for. And I’m grateful to this baseball team for giving it to us.