Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello said Tuesday evening that he hasn’t had any discussions with LSU about its vacancy.
Widely considered one of the best jobs in the country, the top spot at LSU came up for grabs when Hall of Famer Paul Mainieri announced this season would be his last.
Vitello is widely believed to be a serious candidate for the LSU job, but he said moments after Tennessee’s 8-4 loss to Texas at the College World Series saying he hasn’t spoken with anyone at LSU about that job.
“No, I have not had (any discussions),” Vitello said moments after Tennessee’s season-ending loss to the Longhorns.
Vitello was asked directly if he planned to be the head coach at Tennessee next season, and he didn’t provide a direct answer to that question, choosing instead to say he’s owed it to his players and assistants and Tennessee’s administration and fans to keep every bit of his focus on his current team.
“You know, I just made an idiot out of myself, at least for all the masculine folks watching, by getting teary-eyed about these kids, and that’s where my focus has been,” Vitello said. “So like I said, the social life hasn’t been existent for quite some time, well before our Opening Day game, and a part of that is I want to do as good of a job as I can for the school that gave me a chance, and I want to do as good of a job I can for a group that we thought could go pretty far. And then, you know, the way the season evolved, like I said, these emotions are certainly not fake. I don’t know if it’s embarrassing or not, but it’s coming from a place where that’s my No. 1 concern, is these guys.
“Now I’ll go back to the room, and anyone who knows me, it’ll be bad, how much I critique myself, and it hurts. So I’m certainly not gonna waste energy before a game or any other game having regrets that, you know, my mind wasn’t right, or we weren’t prepared the right way to go into whatever game it might be.”
Vitello took over the Tennessee program in 2018 and needed just two years to put the Vols back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 14 years. Tennessee was then 15-2 when the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled the season, and the Vols exploded in 2021, winning 50 games, an SEC Eastern Division championship, advancing to the championship game of the SEC Tournament and then getting back to the College World Series for the first time since 2005.
Tennessee was one of the favorites heading into the College World Series, but the program’s first trip to Omaha in 16 years ended with two frustrating losses and a quick trip back to Knoxville.
Vitello is currently one of the lowest-paid head coaches in the SEC despite receiving a raise and extension following the program’s return to the NCAA Tournament in 2019, but Tennessee’s administration has worked feverishly to get things in order and offer the coach another extension with a significant raise and promises to expand and enhance Lindsey Nelson Stadium. Vitello and the Tennessee administration have met multiple times to discuss options for Lindsey Nelson’s future.
