Tony Vitello on the College World Series: 'There aren't really any underdogs'

The NCAA Tournament’s top-seeded Tennessee Volunteers appear to be the team to beat in Omaha this weekend at the 2024 Men’s College World Series.

However, if you ask Vols head coach Tony Vitello, he’d likely say that every team has an equal shot of winning it all if they’ve made it this far, regardless of ranking.

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“First of all, it’s difficult to get here, and once you are here, it’s even more difficult to win,” Vitello said. “Part of that is the talent that’s here.

“So the seeding to me kind of evaporates. It’s valuable in the first round because if you line up those four teams, the 1 seed is normally going to get the team that maybe is not as potent as the others. But once you get here, there aren’t really any underdogs or anything like that.”

Seeding-wise, No. 1 Tennessee, No. 2 Kentucky, No. 3 Texas A&M and No. 4 North Carolina all climbed their way up the bracket and there are no surprises their season will conclude in Omaha. No. 8 Florida State, based on seeding, was expected to make the field as well.

Of course, upsets are bound to happen in a tournament of this magnitude, and not every single top-eight seed made its way past the regional or super-regional round. No. 10 NC State and No. 12 Virginia rounded out the nationally-ranked field while Florida will enter the Men’s College World Series as the only team that wasn’t a top-16 national seed to make the field.

The Gators in particular had to take down two top-16 ranked opponents in No. 16 Oklahoma State in the Stillwater Regional before sweeping No. 3-seed Clemson in the Clemson Regional last weekend.

Since the beginning of the NCAA Tournament, all eight of these teams have had to overcome their competition in their respective regionals and super regionals will compete in Omaha on one common mission: to obtain national championship gold and become NCAA Champions.

Whoever that may be Is yet to be decided, but an exciting week of college baseball is set to be played beginning with the North Carolina Tar Heels and Virginia Cavaliers on June 14 with the first pitch being scheduled for 2 p.m. ET. For the Vols, they’ll battle Florida State on Friday in Game 2, which will begin at 7 p.m. ET.