Skip to main content
tennessee logo

Tennessee football takes lessons from baseball's championship run

On3 imageby:Brent Hubbs•09/04/24•

Brent_Hubbs

Josh Heupel, Tony Vitello and Rick Barnes | Karthik Venkataraman, WBIR
Josh Heupel, Tony Vitello and Rick Barnes | Karthik Venkataraman, WBIR

Tennessee tabs itself as an everything school and based on winning the SEC all sports trophy the last three years it’s justified. 

Back in June, Tony Vitello and the baseball team took Tennessee to the mountain top winning a national title. Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel was on hand for the win along with basketball coach Rick Barnes. It was a gesture that meant a lot to Vitello, who has watched, learned and taken advice from both.

“Coach Heupel has been so gracious with everybody in our athletic department,” Vitello said recently on the Everything Orange podcast. “The football coach more than anyone could ever imagine unless you have been an athlete on a campus, the football coach sets the tone for the whole athletic department. And one of the reasons everyone is together is because the head guy in football doesn’t have an ego. He’s helped bring it together and make it a family deal.”

Wednesday night, centerfielder Hunter Ensley was in the house at VolCalls and asked the head coach a question. Heupel took a moment to praised the baseball team and to note how much he has used that team, coach Vitello and their run to a title with his team the last couple of months.

“Wasn’t it fun watching those guys? I was out there for the last one. I wanted to be out there for two weeks with them. It was fun to watch those guys. We showed a lot of clips of their journey to Omaha and once they were there,” Heupel said. “Just the competitive make up of that team. The resiliency, the toughness, the one, for them the one pitch mentality. For us one play at a time. A lot of lessons that we took away from it. It was cool to be able to show our guys that because they are guys that they see everyday. It’s guys they walk by the baseball field and see every day. It hit home in a different way than when we are showing NFL film.”

Heupel and his Vols are trying to have their own run this fall. A regular season run that could mean a post season run with the expanded 12-team playoff. Up next for Tennessee is a Saturday night match up with NC State in Charlotte. Kickoff is set for 7:45 with the game to be televised on ABC.

You may also like