Tennessee baseball: Coach of the Year award shows SEC robbed Tony Vitello
Back in the College World Series, Tennessee baseball will be looking to win the national championship despite failing to win the SEC regular season or SEC Tournament championship. Well, they now have a national award despite failing to win it in the conference.
Tony Vitello lost out on the SEC Coach of the Year award to Dave Van Horn of the Arkansas Razorbacks, and Vitello was named National Coach of the Year by the National College Baseball Writers Association.
Van Horn and Arkansas missed out on the College World Series after being upset by the N.C. State Wolfpack in the NCAA Super Regionals. The NCBWA announced Vitello won the award Friday morning on Twitter.
Tony Vitello of @Vol_Baseball is the 2021 Mike Martin Coach of the Year. In his fourth season in Knoxville, he has led his club to Omaha with its first 50-win season (50-16) since 1995 and the No. 3 national seed. https://t.co/9iuzdIY1OA pic.twitter.com/tzlfs58xUA
— NCBWA (@NCBWA) June 18, 2021
If Vitello can win National Coach of the Year despite not winning SEC Coach of the Year, could that be an omen for the Vols to win the national title? It’s possible, and it would immediately make Vitello the greatest coach in UT baseball history.
Of course, it’s obvious Vitello should have been the SEC Coach of the Year. Van Horn has done a great job with the Hogs and is a more accomplished and greater coach, but his teams reached the College World Series in 2018 and 2019 before the pandemic cut short the 2020 season.
On the other hand, Vitello inherited a program that hadn’t reached the NCAA Tournament in 13 years when he took over his first season in 2018, and just as the program was on the rise, the pandemic cut short the 2020 season. He still got them back to the CWS this year, 16 years after their last appearance.
Next. Five ways UT was different last time Vols reached CWS. dark
Even though Arkansas seemed like the better team in the regular season, Vitello’s accomplishments with Tennessee baseball were clearly more impressive. He’s definitely now the biggest rising star among SEC baseball coaches and one of the best hires the UT athletics program has made the past 15 years. There’s no doubt he deserved the SEC Coach of the Year award.