Tennessee Baseball Sophomore Duo Earns Preseason Recognition

A pair of Tennessee baseball sophomores were in the headlines earlier this week.

Right-handed pitch Tegan Kuhns and OF Blaine Brown were named Preseason All-Americans by Baseball America.

The news broke just under two weeks from opening day for Tennessee as Nicholls State comes travels to Rocky Top for a three-game series.

The series will begin on Friday the 13th and conclude on the 15th.

Game 1 is set for a 4:30pm start time, while Saturday and Sunday are scheduled for 1pm.

Brown was so impactful last season that honors were presented at the end of the 2025 season. All-American Conference 1st team and American Conference All-Freshman Team were two highlighted accolades for the talented outfielder.

Tegan Kuhns may not have received the recognition, but his play spoke for itself as many began to give their attention to Kuhns as he continually made impacts in the games the called his number.

There is buzzing anticipation around the program, a lot steaming from the off-season changes.

The Tennessee baseball program will debut a new head coach for the first time since 2018.

Tony Vitello accepted the job to be the head coach of the Volunteers in June of 2017.

Vitello would lead the program to new heights under his leadership from 2018-2025.

SEC titles (regular season and tournament), deep runs in the NCAA tournament, which was all capped in 2024 as the Tennessee Volunteers were crowned the NCAA Champions after defeating Texas A&M.

Since then, Tony Vitello was hired by the San Francisco Giants in October of 2025.

This would create the odd thought for many journalists.

One of the nation's winningest programs over the last three to five years, the Vols will go into the 2026 season with a new head coach.

Danny White decided to stay in-house when replacing Tony Vitello by hiring Josh Elander.

Josh Elander was essentially the team's pick to step in and lead the Vols back on the diamond in 2026, and the athletic department seemed to agree as Elander was quickly hired for the job.

Elander spent the last three seasons as the associate head coach, and the five seasons prior to that as staff member.

So, although the name may be different to hear, Elander was with Vitello every step of the way as he built a machine of a program in Knoxville.

If Elander is able to keep the train on the tracks, he may have struck gold in Big Orange country.

The young talent such as Kuhns and Brown could be a big part of the early success of Elander as a new era is set to begin on Rocky Top.