When Tony Vitello stepped down as the head coach of the Tennessee Vols to take over as the manager of the San Francisco Giants, fans and former players immediately endorsed Josh Elander as the top option to lead UT baseball.

Elander, an assistant under Vitello at Tennessee from 2018 to 2025, was hired by Vols athletic director Danny White after a brief coaching search.

The former TCU catcher had an up-and-down first season as Tennessee’s head coach. Getting swept by Vanderbilt and losing a series to Kentucky were low points, while sweeping Mississippi State and taking a series from Texas were high points of Elander’s first season.

Tennessee finished the regular season with a 37-19 record. The Vols won’t be hosting a regional this season, but they’ll be in the NCAA Tournament for the seventh straight season (not counting 2020, when no tourney was held because of the COVID pandemic).

Vols baseball legend Chris Burke shares his thoughts on Josh Elander

Vols baseball legend Chris Burke, who currently works for ESPN, joined 104.5 The Zone’s Ramon and Will on Tuesday and shared some thoughts on Elander’s first season.

“I think Josh has done an incredible job of keeping this thing on the rails,” said Burke. “I think it could have really gotten away from them just with how messy the bullpen has been. And you talk about a disconcerting thing — I don’t care if you’re (Florida head coach) Kevin O’Sullivan, who has been to Omaha nine times — when you can’t get the last three outs, that is a tough way to live.

“And so for Josh Elander to have a bullpen that has largely underperformed, yet for them to be so well coached and trained to hang in there and figure out a way to get to 15 and 15 (in SEC play), I just think that says a lot about what that coaching staff is made of. And the way they’ve been able to keep their kids in it, because if you really look at them in a snapshot over the last three weeks, they feel pretty dangerous. I think they’re seventh in the country in home runs. That’s an offense that doesn’t feel very pitchable right now. When they left Vanderbilt, they felt very pitchable. But it’s an offense that’s just really grown up over the last month.”

“For a first year head coach to be given a team in November that is pretty young, and a bullpen that hasn’t quite ever come together,” continued Burke. “And he’s got them right in the middle of being a two seed and very dangerous in the postseason. I think it’s an extremely successful first year for Josh.”

Elander was certainly put in a tough spot when he was tapped to take over for Vitello last fall. Even though he was one of Vitello’s top lieutenants over the last eight years, it doesn’t mean that Elander wasn’t going to experience some growing pains in his first season as a head coach.

But Elander navigated those growing pains well, and now he has his team positioned to make some noise in the NCAA Tournament.