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What Went Wrong The Tennessee Vols Baseball During 2025 Season?

Brooks Austin

Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello during game one of the NCAA baseball tournament Fayetteville Super Regional between Tennessee and Arkansas held at Baum-Walker Stadium on Saturday, June 7, 2025.
Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello during game one of the NCAA baseball tournament Fayetteville Super Regional between Tennessee and Arkansas held at Baum-Walker Stadium on Saturday, June 7, 2025. / Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Tennessee Volunteers won their first College World Series Title a year ago, and as the season comes to a close, we take a look at what went wrong for this Vols squad in the 2025 season. 

The Tennessee Volunteers’ fan reading this today know that College Baseball has changed since the arrival of Tony Vitello in Knoxville, Tennessee. 

Under Vitello, the Vols have already won the school’s first national title, but also reached Omaha three of the last four years, and have managed to make a Super Regional five straight years, the only program in college baseball to accomplish such a feat. 

It’s been a completely foreign era of dominance in this sport for the Vols. Though for the first time in three years, the Vols are going home instead of going to Omaha in the middle of June to defend their title. So, what went wrong? 

Finish to the Season

There is no secret, the Vols uncharacteristically closed the season. After going nearly 18 months without losing an SEC weekend series, the Vols lost five of their last six SEC series. So, even though eventually they would have had to match up with Arkansas, it wouldn’t have been in a Super Regioal as the No. 14 seed. 

The Vols’ regular season performance impacted their postseason path and that’s just the nature of the sport. Tennessee plays in an incredibly hard conference and is coming out as the No. 14 overall seed as opposed to a potential Top-8 seed. You need enough luck during this part of the season, you don’t want to be hoping for breaks at this point in the season. 

Loss of Talent 

“We aren’t the most talented team in baseball, not even close.” Tony Vitello knew this baseball team wasn’t as supremely talented as last year's in the middle of the season. Sure, they have great players, players that will go on to be first-round picks. 

Though there’s a reason no one has repeated as champions in this sport since 2011-2012. It’s extremely hard. Especially when you have six of the top-150 picks in the MLB draft. The Vols lost their five best bats and basically the entire starting pitching staff.

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Brooks Austin
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