Former Louisville infielder Gavin Kilen commits to Tennessee

Former Louisville shortstop Gavin Kilen has committed to Tennessee out of the NCAA Transfer Portal, he announced on Instagram on Thursday. Kilen has multiple years of eligibility remaining.

In two years with the Cardinals, the lefty-batting middle infielder appeared 102 games, starting 94 as the regular shortstop for Louisville. He’s hit .309 across his two college seasons and perked up his power numbers with all 10 of his career college home runs coming in 2024.

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Kilen is one of the top available shortstops in the portal.

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Tennessee’s head coach was pursued by another SEC program

The Texas A&M Aggies coaching search came to an end with reports that Michael Earley would be the program’s next head coach. Prior to that, though, the Aggies seemed to want to make a splash hire with Tennessee‘s Tony Vitello or Virginia‘s Brian O’Connor.

According to Kendall Rogers, the Aggies made what he described as a “furious run” at Tennessee head coach Vitello and Virginia head coach O’Connor prior to going with Earley.

“A&M made a very furious run ($$) for Tony Vitello. It shot its shot, but TV stayed put and loyal to a program that has given him the keys to the castle,” Rogers posted.

Vitello has been the head coach at Tennessee since 2018. During that time, he’s turned the Volunteers into one of the premier baseball programs in the country. That culminated with a national championship win over Texas A&M in the 2024 College World Series.

Vitello has an overall record of 295–112 at Tennessee and with stops at Arkansas and TCU as an assistant would have made plenty of sense for Texas A&M to want to hire him. It’s also notable that while at TCU he was an assistant coach under Jim Schlossnagle. However, he chose to stick with the Volunteers where he has built the program up.

In the case of O’Connor, he’s been at Virginia since 2004 and has a record of 885–370–2 there. He’s taken the team to the College World Series seven times and won the national championship in 2015. So, while hiring him would make sense for Texas A&M, he proved too difficult to get away from the Cavaliers.

Rogers also noted that Link Jarrett was never an option for Texas A&M because he wouldn’t leave Florida State. Alabama head coach Rob Vaughn was also not strongly considered for the role. Then, when Michael Earley became an option, Skip Johnson and Tom Walter came off Texas A&M’s list.