Liam Doyle doesn’t hold back while explaining why he transferred from Ole Miss to Tennessee, and Rebels fans don’t love his comments
St. Louis Cardinals prospect Liam Doyle played for the Ole Miss Rebels before joining the Tennessee Volunteers baseball program ahead of the 2025 season. Doyle faced Ole Miss during the 2025 season.
Before St. Louis Cardinals prospect Liam Doyle became a star with the Tennessee Vols, he played at Coastal Carolina and Ole Miss.
Doyle transferred from Ole Miss to Tennessee following the 2024 season.
The left-handed pitcher actually got a chance to face his old teammates early in the 2025 season, and he was dominant. Doyle pitched 8.1 innings while striking out 14 and allowing two earned runs in a 3-2 win over the Rebels in Oxford.
Liam Doyle gets real on his decision to transfer from Ole Miss to Tennessee
Doyle recently sat down with Steve Granado for a discussion on the Springfield Cardinals YouTube channel and spoke about his decision to transfer from Ole Miss to Tennessee.
The former Vol said his primary reason for transferring was because he felt he would be developed better at Tennessee.
“Ole Miss, at the time, it was a good spot for me,” said Doyle. “It was whatever. I didn’t necessarily think I was going to develop there. It was the level (the SEC) that I wanted to be on, but I just didn’t have the right support crew that I personally needed. And I didn’t really like it too much, so I was ready to move within conference.
“I knew I wanted to stay within the SEC. I knew Tennessee was definitely a way better place than Ole Miss, and I knew that’s what I needed to go do to further my career. Because at that point, you’re playing in the SEC, so there’s a real possibility to go play pro ball. You know you need a lot of work, and you’ve got nine months to kind of figure it out before the next draft. It’s either now or you’re never going to get the chance again. So I hopped in the portal again, and [Tennessee] made some great upgrades to me physically and on the mound, and that was huge. Talking to those guys over at Tennessee, meeting Coach (Tony) Vitello for the first time, which was just awesome. He’s a great guy — someone that I still keep in touch with almost every day now. And the rest of the support crew over there was super influential for me in my career. They were great for me, and definitely something I needed to do for my career.”
Doyle admitted during the interview that he had the game against Ole Miss last season “bookmarked”. He also pointed out that he “definitely didn’t like that place” and they didn’t like him, either.
“That was a game that I bookmarked on my visit down to Tennessee,” said Doyle. “That was one of the first things when I sat in Coach V’s office, we were looking over the schedule, and I just told him I was committing there. Me and my buddy Andrew (Fischer) committed the same day, which was cool. We both transferred from Ole Miss over to Tennessee, so we committed in his office that day. As soon as we stepped on campus, we pretty much knew it was going to be the best move for us.
“And yeah, definitely we both were like, ‘This is the one right here, like this is huge, and this is something that we want to go do together,’ and we made it happen. You’ve got a lot of emotions, and people that you just want to show that you were that guy and that you could be that guy. And, you know, I definitely didn’t like the place, they didn’t like me. So it was cool. And that’s how it went down, it was fun.”
It certainly sounds like there’s no love lost between Doyle and Ole Miss.
As for the improvements that Tennessee helped Doyle make, Vitello noted last summer that the lefty was “out of shape” when he arrived from Ole Miss.
“Last year, when he was pitching at Mississippi, he would often just kind of beat himself,” said Vitello. “Guys wouldn’t get to him, he would run out of steam because he was flat-out out of shape. And also, he’d run out of pitches because he didn’t throw enough strikes. This year, he loses 19 pounds of body fat, gets to work, gets in shape, throws a ton of strikes.”
Doyle’s Ole Miss to Tennessee experience is pretty similar to Chase Burns’ Tennessee to Wake Forest experience — which is a reminder that college programs aren’t one-size fits all. What makes sense for one player may not make sense for another player.
Liam Doyle left a big impression on Vols fans
While Doyle probably won’t be welcomed in any restaurants in Oxford anytime soon, there’s no doubt that he’s a beloved figure on Rocky Top — especially after fans learned what he said in his exit interview with Vitello last summer.
“We had an exit meeting with [Doyle], and what he said choked me up like no other,” said Vitello last June. “He went to Coastal Carolina, he went to Mississippi, and then he came to us. And he said the one thing he got out of coming here, he said he loved every minute, and obviously Frank (Anderson) got him better, and he’s going to make a lot of money, but he said, ‘What I had been searching for this whole time is a place I can call home, and this is a place that I can call home’. And so that’s something to me that should elevate that legendary status with the fan base or the community, because he’s been in some good spots. I mean, Coastal is an Omaha national championship team. So is Mississippi. They’re both great places.
“For whatever reason, this (Tennessee) clicked for him. And what he was willing to do with his arm, instead of sitting out and saying, ‘I’m going to get drafted in the first round, I don’t need to be doing this stupid stuff’, he was wanting to do more than we would let him do.”
“To only do that for 9 or 10 months with that kid is depressing,” added Vitello of Doyle. “So who knows, maybe we raise a glass sometime down the road or go see one of his outings. But he’s special. And anyone who badmouths him at any point because he gets fired up — and I’m sure social media posts stuff — if they met him for two seconds, they would love him as a kid. And then we’d all kill to have him on our team no matter what the sport is.”