Tennessee baseball among top five in Perfect Game preseason rankings
Tennessee baseball won the first national championship in program history last June and are gearing back up for the start of another exciting season that sits just six weeks away.
At this stage of the offseason, the preseason rankings begin to roll in. Tennessee baseball was ranked fifth by Perfect Game in the first edition of such preseason rankings that were announced Monday afternoon.
Tony Vitello’s bunch came in behind Texas A&M, who they outlasted in the CWS Finals in Omaha last season, who lead the rankings at No. 1. LSU chimes in with a second-place position while Virginia and Georgia are right in front of the Volunteers in third and fourth. Florida State, Texas, Clemson, Duke and Oregon State round out the top-10 of the Perfect Game preseason rankings.
In total, 10 teams from the Southeastern Conference were ranked inside the top-25 with six 2024 College World Series programs present.
2025 College Baseball ‘Preseason Top 25’ https://t.co/UWUy9HzdMk pic.twitter.com/BRRtexO2Zn
— Perfect Game USA (@PerfectGameUSA) January 6, 2025
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.
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.
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