‘I’ll tell you my assessment of Tennessee baseball’ – Highly respected Vols insider offers strong take on Josh Elander after year one
Tennessee Volunteers baseball coach Josh Elander wrapped up his first season as the program’s leader after taking over last fall for Tony Vitello, who left Rocky Top after eight seasons for MLB.
Josh Elander had some big shoes to fill this season after taking over for Tony Vitello as Tennessee’s head baseball coach.
And while there were some inevitable ups and downs, Elander got Tennessee to the NCAA Tournament — which is quite an accomplishment considering some prominent programs (like LSU) didn’t make it that far.
Still, there’s clearly room for improvement after the Volunteers finished with their fewest wins since Vitello’s first season on Rocky Top (not counting the COVID-shortened 2020 season).
Top Vols insider shares assessment of Josh Elander after year one
VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs, a top Vols insider who has been around the program for over three decades, shared his assessment of Elander and Tennessee baseball on Tuesday during an appearance on WNML’s SportsTalk.
Hubbs specifically pointed out that he’s been impressed with the way Elander and his staff have handled the start of the offseason.
“My assessment of Tennessee baseball is that Josh Elander and his staff were prepared,” said Hubbs. “They were ready to go when the portal opened. They did a quick ‘get through your roster’ on who’s staying, who’s leaving, who you want to stay, and who’s going to potentially price themselves out of staying.
“I thought they did a really good job as soon as the season was over of diving into that part of it. And then they really get rolling with the portal. They feel organized right now in what they’re doing and what they’re looking at. I think Josh Elander has been very decisive in what he has done since the season ended. Whether it was making a change, roster retention versus roster departures, and then obviously the portal work they’ve got done. So I like the assertiveness that they have shown right out of the gate here. I think they’ve been well organized and prepared. And I think it’s showing up early for Tennessee.”
Elander didn’t take over until late last October, so he didn’t have a full offseason as the program’s head coach. This is essentially his first real offseason — it’s his first chance to shape the roster in his own vision.
I don’t mean to bring back memories of Derek Dooley, but last season was basically year zero for Elander. The 2027 season will be the first season that we get to see a 100 percent Elander product on the field.
And it sounds like he’s off to a strong start this offseason. That’s important. Because if you get off to a slow start in the offseason in this era of college baseball, there’s simply no way to make up any ground.