D1 Baseball has reigning national champs in preseason top five
As the start of the 2025 college baseball season sits just 32 days away, D1 Baseball released their preseason rankings with Tennessee coming in the fourth.
Tony Vitello’s club placed behind Texas A&M – who finished as national runner-up last season to the Vols – Virginia and LSU, as those teams led off as the top-three. The Vols ranked just ahead of Arkansas in fifth while North Carolina, Oregon State, Georgia, Florida State and Florida rounded out the top-10.
In all, there’s seven teams from last season’s College World Series field that comprise the D1 Baseball top-25 – as well as eight teams from the Southeastern Conference. Last week, Perfect Game ranked the Vols No. 5 ahead of the new campaign.
The Vols (60-13) finished the 2024 season with the first national championship in program history and became the first team from the Southeastern Conference to eclipse the 60-win marker in a single season. Tennessee went an impressive 10-2 in the NCAA Baseball Tournament and snapped the ‘curse’ of No. 1 overall seeds not winning the title, a streak that dated back to Miami in 1999.
Tennessee’s 60 wins last year were the most of any team since Florida State in 2002 and the most of any national champion since Wichita State in 1989. It was the second straight trip to the College World Series in Omaha for Tennessee, the third in four years and the first time the Vols played for a national title since their first trip there in 1951.
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Vitello has rewritten the Tennessee Baseball record books, leading the country the last four seasons in wins (211), win percentage (.773), NCAA Tournament wins (25) and home runs (566).
The Vols won everything they could in 2024 – winning the SEC’s regular-season championship, the SEC Tournament championship, Knoxville Regional and Knoxville Super Regional. The team lost back-to-back games on March 16 and 17, then never lost consecutive games again. They went 7-0 while facing elimination in the SEC Tournament and NCAA Tournament, including coming back from down 0-1 in the best-of-three College World Series championship series against Texas A&M.
Tennessee opens the 2025 season at home against Hofstra on Friday, February 14.
Tennessee Vols in the 2025 Preseason Rankings
D1 Baseball – No. 4
Perfect Game – No. 5
Tennessee Vols 2025 Preseason Accolades
SS Dean Curley: Second-Team All-American (Perfect Game) | No. 8 sophomore in country (Perfect Game)
RHP Nate Snead: Second-Team All-American (Perfect Game) | No. 38 junior in country (Perfect Game)
3B Andrew Fischer: No. 14 junior in country (Perfect Game)
RHP AJ Russell: No. 30 junior in country (Perfect Game)
INF Gavin Kilen: No. 25 junior in country (Perfect Game)
LHP Liam Doyle: No. 55 junior in country (Perfect Game)
C Cannon Peebles: No. 92 junior in country (Perfect Game)
OF Hunter Ensley: No. 2 senior in country (Perfect Game)
UTL Alex Perry: No. 73 senior in country (Perfect Game)
UTL Jay Abernathy: No. 3 Best Freshman (Baseball America) | No. 6 Best Freshmen (Perfect Game)
UTL Levi Clark: No. 21 Best Freshman (Perfect Game)
RHP Tegan Kuhns: No. 46 Best Freshman (Perfect Game)
RHP Anson Seibert: No. 52 Best Freshman (Perfect Game)
MIF Manny Marin: No. 56 Best Freshman (Perfect Game)
