Despite stunning loss, don’t expect Vols baseball to disappear quietly
I was shocked. More than that. Stunned.
Up there with Duke beating UNLV in the semis and Mississippi State beating Geno and UConn a few years ago as the biggest non-title game college sports upsets I can ever recall.
And maybe that still does not do justice to Notre Dame bouncing top-ranked Tennessee in the Knoxville Super Regional over the weekend.
It was a three-game series that had a little bit of everything, which was expected from this UT bunch which prided itself on doing a lot of everything. And doing it loudly, brashly, and unapologetically. As Mark Wiedmer said in his column, there will be a lot of folks swimming in this because UT lost and how heart-breaking it was for a team that was either super cool or super crude — and some of both — depending on your allegiance.
I think the legacy for this bunch — who some called the best college team in the country this year in any sport — will be wide-ranging.
Personally, I loved the energy and life they brought to a game that is starving for it. Was it at times over the top? No doubt, like when Drew Gilbert cussed out the ump and got tossed in Game 1 of this Super Regional.
But I also believe that anyone who thinks this is not the springboard for a baseball juggernaut, well, I’d caution against doing too many victory laps over Tony Vitello’s program.
They were the talk of college baseball — heck, here’s betting ESPN execs are heart-broken the Vols are not bringing the ratings-drawing circus of celebration to Omaha; I know I will watch less without UT there — because of what they did and how they did it.
That attracts the attention of the best recruits in the country. Also remember that UT baseball has a separate, baseball-specific NIL recruiting set-up.
And, while UT will likely lose multiple first-round picks next month — another thing recruits pay attention to — they have a slew of talented dudes coming back too.
You may hate the way UT played, and you may love that Notre Dame won this weekend — and as was mentioned in Weeds’ column, when you can make Notre Dame the crappy, fan-favorite underdog in any sport, well, that screams volumes.
But Tony V and his boys are going to be right there in the spotlight for the foreseeable future.