Tony Vitello has gone from being an assistant baseball coach and recruiting coordinator at Arkansas to leading the Tennessee Vols.If anyone needs to pay close attention as the best-of-three College World Series finals between Arkansas and Oregon State begin tonight in Omaha, Nebraska, it’s long-suffering University of Tennessee baseball fans.
And while it’s always nice to see a Southeastern Conference school vying for a national championship – especially because the SEC has won five of the past nine CWS titles and finished second five times in the past seven years – that’s only slightly why this should be a big deal to the Big Orange Nation.
No, what makes this must-see TV for UT is that Volunteers coach Tony Vitello recruited most of these Arkansas players before the four-year Razorbacks assistant accepted the job in Knoxville last spring.
So when you hear Hogs second baseman Carson Shaddy tell media at the CWS, “We’re not really scared of anybody,” and you realize that the Vols’ 9-6 home conference mark in 2018 was their best since 2005, and you recall Tennessee’s 12 overall league wins were the most to fail to make the SEC tournament under its revised format of omitting two of the 14 member schools – well, you start to think this Vitello guy knows what he’s doing.
That’s especially apparent when you consider 11 Arkansas players were chosen in the recent MLB first-year player draft and that the team that has clubbed 100 home runs this season, good for second nationally, has never trailed in this year’s CWS while averaging 7.7 runs per game in Omaha.
Of course, given that Oregon State averaged a stunning 9.6 runs while batting .351 in its first five CWS games, such offensive firepower from the Hogs might not be enough.
Yet because offense was reportedly Vitello’s coaching calling card during his time in Hogsville, it could easily foreshadow a return to those glory days when the Vols went to the NCAA tournament eight times from 1993 to 2005, reaching the CWS three times in that span. Beyond that, Tennessee was the national runner-up to Oklahoma in 1951.
So Tennessee is, historically, as Vitello noted when he was introduced by former athletic director John Currie last spring, “As good of an opportunity as there is in the country. It’s no coincidence that it’s been a place where so many great coaches have been leaders in their sport. I want to work like crazy to uphold that standard.”
But the Vols haven’t been at that level for a long while. Getting back there – to where so much of the SEC seems to be these days (11 SEC schools made the NCAA tourney) – is going to take the kind of coaching and recruiting Vitello succeeded at so much with Arkansas.
And because – as Hall of Fame pitchers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine taught us decades ago – “Chicks dig the long ball,” Vitello’s talent for improving hitters certainly can’t hurt his ability to sign position players.
Besides, what high school kid wouldn’t be attracted to playing for a coach who drives a Maserati, as Vitello does?
Not that Vitello’s known for spotting hitting talent only. A St. Louis native and Missouri grad, the most talented player Vitello ever signed was for his alma mater – Washington Nationals ace and three-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer.
So pay close attention to the Razorbacks when the championship series against Oregon State begins tonight at 7 EDT on ESPN. Watch how they can score runs. Watch the fruition of all Vitello’s work as a recruiter for Hogs head coach Dave Van Horn.
Said Arkansas right fielder Eric Cole to ESPN over the weekend, “After the draft, we had nothing else to do but win a national championship.”
If the Razorbacks deliver the SEC’s sixth NCAA baseball title in 10 seasons, don’t be surprised if at least a few of them mention Vitello’s role in helping them get there.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.