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Tennessee Vols head coach Tony Vitello confirms suspicion about his team's mindset heading into the 2026 season
Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Tennessee Vols had a solid season in 2025, but they weren't able to return to Omaha to defend their 2024 national championship. 

Tennessee won 46 games and hosted a regional before falling to the Arkansas Razorbacks in the Fayetteville Super Regional. 

Shortly after the end of the Vols' season, head coach Tony Vitello noted that he planned to be "more aggressive" in the transfer portal (which Vitello has followed through on). 

That comment seemed to indicate that Vitello and the Vols were bitter about the way the 2025 season. 

Vitello confirmed that's the case this week at the 2025 MLB Draft via some comments to WATE's Sam Rothman. 

"Right now, we're a little bitter about the end of last year," said Vitello. "Tonight (night one of the 2025 MLB Draft) kind of erases that for a while. I think it'll be time to celebrate these kids (that were drafted) and some of the other ones that will go tomorrow. But when August starts rolling around, I think we'll get back to that feeling of we're not very happy that we got stuck on, you know, 46 wins is a good number, but it's not the number we're looking for. So we'll be fired up about next year.

"But reflecting on the years prior, I think we've been able to capitalize on good ingredients. It's a phenomenal University, and a phenomenal area. You know what Vol nation is like -- about as crazy as it gets. And I think we've always had good players on our campus dating back to Coach (Rod) Delmonico's era. So we've just been able to capitalize on good ingredients, and we would like to do that even more so next year."

We'll see what happens next season, but it certainly sounds like Vitello and the Vols are on a mission to return to Omaha. Based on the way they've been recruiting, it would almost be a surprise if that doesn't happen.

This article first appeared on A to Z Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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