The Tennessee Vols baseball team made a major statement this weekend by going into Oxford and sweeping the Ole Miss Rebels.

Ole Miss was ranked as the No. 1 team in the country.

The Vols, however, should be ranked No. 1 this week after completely dominating the Rebels on their home field (Tennessee outscored Ole Miss in the series 26-7).

After the first game of the series, Rebels pitcher Dylan DeLucia said that Ole Miss took Tennessee "lightly". He then guaranteed that the Rebels would win game two of the series (UT won that game 10-3).

The tone after Sunday's loss, though, was much different from Ole Miss.

Rebels pitcher Brandon Johnson walked back some of DeLucia's comments, saying that Ole Miss has a lot of respect for Tennessee baseball.

"I would like to say that our teammates said some words that weren't exactly right," said Johnson (via Chase Parham). "That's a really good team over there and we respect them. Obviously, we think they are the best team in the country. They showed that.

"We have all the respect in the world for them and we never took them lightly or anything like that."

Tennessee so thoroughly dominated Ole Miss over the weekend that Rebels head coach Mike Bianco had to reference moral victories.

"This isn't the program that has moral victories or got close," said Bianco after the loss on Sunday. "Losses hurt. It doesn't matter if it's 10-3 or 4-3. But we played a little bit better today. I thought our guys competed."

Tennessee signaled to the rest of college baseball that they are for real this year while humbling Ole Miss at the same time.

It's simply incredible the job Tony Vitello has done in Knoxville over the last few years. And the program hasn't even peaked yet.

Featured image via USA TODAY Sports