It’s hard to know what to expect out of the Tennessee Vols in 2026 with Tony Vitello now in San Francisco (a fact I forget from time to time and then remember and am sad all over again).
However, it appears as thought the national media still thinks pretty highly of the Base Vols ahead of the 2026 season.
Baseball America put out their preseason top 25 rankings, and the Vols checked in at No. 13.
D1 Baseball put out their rankings a week ago. The Vols came in at No. 14 there.
Preseason baseball rankings are interesting to me. Often times, for example, in college football, in the AP and Coaches polls, you’ll see teams in relatively close order and perhaps a handful of spots apart from one poll to another. Perhaps some seesaw from 13 to 17 from one poll to the other.
But here, we’ve got teams like Florida who go from 22 to 13, and Virginia is 14 in Baseball America but unranked in D1. Those are quite the swings. But these are rankings and not polls, so perhaps it’s just more in the eye of those particular beholders.
But Tennessee is there, in the middle of both polls, firmly seen as a contender for Omaha early on with Josh Elander taking over the reins of the program.
The Vols, for the second straight year, lost a ton of players to the pros. However, there’s still plenty of talent left on the roster for Elander, Chuck Jeroloman and the rest of the staff to work with. Rising star Levi Clark and Virginia transfer Henry Ford will man the corners of the infield and provide some pop at the plate. The Vols will feature a number of transfer portal pieces on the pitching side, but Virginia transfer Evan Blanco and Rutgers’ Landon Mack have the upside to fill out a solid rotation this year for the Big Orange.
We’ll find out soon enough, as opening day against Nicholls State is Feb. 13.