Texas A&M baseball coach makes bold statement about Tennessee after win over Vols
The Tennessee Vols won't be repeating as SEC Tournament champs in 2023. Tennessee fell to the Texas A&M Aggies in the first round of the tournament, losing 3-0 on Tuesday. The Vols will now wait to see where they're heading for NCAA Tournament play (which will be announced on Monday). Tennessee obviously wasn't nearly as […]
The Tennessee Vols won't be repeating as SEC Tournament champs in 2023.
Tennessee fell to the Texas A&M Aggies in the first round of the tournament, losing 3-0 on Tuesday.
The Vols will now wait to see where they're heading for NCAA Tournament play (which will be announced on Monday).
Tennessee obviously wasn't nearly as good in 2023 as they were in 2022, but they're still a really good team. And while the path to Omaha will be a bit tougher this year (since the Vols will likely play on the road), this is still a team that has the talent to win it all.
And that's something that Texas A&M head coach Jim Schlossnagle pointed out after the Aggies' win over the Volunteers this week.
"I have a lot of respect for Tennessee," said Schlossnagle. "They're an aggressive swinging team…they can really hit against anybody."
"This is certainly a different ballpark and different environment than their ballpark," continued Schlossnagle. "That's not to say they can't beat our rear ends. That's an Omaha team. It's an Omaha team. They just have to go play like it."
Schlossnagle is right — the Vols are an Omaha team, they just have to play like they're an Omaha team.
And when it comes to making a run to Omaha, Tennessee can draw inspiration from the run that Ole Miss made a year ago.
The Rebels lost 22 regular season games last year. They had a losing record in the SEC (14-16). And they lost their first game of the SEC Tournament (a 3-1 loss to Vanderbilt) which gave them 11 days off before facing Arizona in the Coral Gables regional. But none of that mattered.
Ole Miss beat Oklahoma twice in two days to win their first College World Series.
Tennessee is in a similar spot this season. The Vols lost 17 regular season games and they finished with a 16-14 record in conference play. Tennessee will also get the benefit of a lengthy break between the SEC Tournament and regional play.
It won't be easy — winning a College World Series has never been easy — but the Vols' goals are all still in front of them. If they get hot next month, Tennessee could easily be the last team standing.
For the Vols, they might as well start asking the question "Why not us?".
