Tony Vitello shares where Tennessee needs to improve

Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello shared where the Volunteers need to improve after exiting the College World Series with a loss to LSU.

The Volunteers made the CWS back in 2021 but fell short of a national title. While Vitello led Tennessee to this point twice over the last three years, he wants more.

The head coach was asked if he advanced the trajectory of the program following the season-ending loss.

“I think so,” Vitello said. “You need to get here. You need to fill it out. Doesn’t mean like Coastal Carolina can’t come here and win a national championship, but you’ve got to get used to the itinerary, the media attention, the stage, and things will be passed down by guys.

“We had some tough dudes on that ’21 team. They kind of locked up a little bit that first game. We also faced a guy named Abbott. I wasn’t too happy when I saw that video when we found out who we were going to face.”

The 2021 team made it to the College World Series but went 0-2 in Omaha. This year, the Volunteers went 1-2 but lost to LSU twice ahead of the semifinals.

“But you’ve got to learn how to deal with rankings and expectations and then people start looking forward to playing you as opposed to maybe sleeping on you a little bit,” Vitello said. “There’s a variety of circumstances. And we want our stadium to get bigger. We want our crowds to keep getting bigger and rowdier. We want our roster to be as competitive as anybody’s. Of course, that will come and go a little bit. But to be able to handle things with shooting for a national championship every year.”

There’s no doubt Vitello pushed the right buttons lately. He’s 235-99 as head coach of Tennessee, including two College World Series appearances.

“Started out slow,” Vitello said. “A lot of struggles in there, a lot of frustration. But guys overcoming that and working together, coming together to make sure we have success. And that’s what occurred. So that’s what I’ll remember it by. And as far as the whole team goes, much was made about preseason rankings with this particular group. I think guys like Drew and others helped kind of get our program to a new category. And no disrespect to any writers or anything like that. We certainly had a lot of talent.

“But I didn’t think we deserved to be where we were at the beginning of the season. I let them know that. Just a lot of new faces. A lot of things that we had to replace, and we did that by the end of the year, in my opinion. I know we won’t be one of the last two teams standing, because number two was our highest preseason ranking, but we kind of challenged these guys to actually become that. And maybe we are at least top five or somewhere in that category again — no disrespect to anybody else.”