
The college baseball season is nine days away and the SEC released its Preseason Coaches Poll as well as its Preseason Coaches All-SEC teams on Wednesday morning.
The SEC’s coaches picked Tennessee to finish in second place in the league, coming in behind Texas A&M and one singular vote ahead of Arkansas. Texas A&M is the definitive favorite to win the conference, receiving 10 of the 16 first place votes. Arkansas garnered three first place votes while Tennessee, LSU and Florida each received one first place vote.
Tennessee is a consensus preseason top 25 team, coming in between No. 2 and No. 5 nationally the five predominant college baseball polls. Texas A&M is the consensus preseason No. 1 team in the country.
Tony Vitello’s eighth Tennessee team has a challenging SEC schedule. They’ll face the teams picked to finish first (Texas A&M), third (Arkansas), fourth (LSU), fifth (Florida), seventh (Vanderbilt), 10th (Kentucky), 12th (Auburn), 13th (Alabama), 14th (South Carolina) and 15th (Ole Miss).
The Vols are the league’s reigning regular-season champions, splitting the honor with Kentucky, before winning the conference’s postseason tournament in Hoover. Tennessee parlayed conference success into NCAA Tournament success.
Tennessee went on to win its first ever National Championship, knocking off Texas A&M in the CWS Finals to become the first ever SEC team to win 60 games in one season.
The Vols lost an abundance of key players from last season’s title team including Christian Moore, Blake Burke, Billy Amick, Dylan Dreiling and Kavares Tears at the plate. On the mound, Tennessee lost key arms including Drew Beam, Zander Sechrist, Kirby Connell, Aaron Combs and AJ Causey.
Still, expectations are high for the 2025 Vols. Tennessee returns a handful of key players including Hunter Ensley and Dean Curley at the plate as well as Nate Snead and Dylan Loy on the mound.
Combine the returning proven Vols with young players who have flashed potential and one of the nation’s top ranked recruiting and transfer classes and Tennessee has no shortage of talent.
Tennessee opens up its 2025 season on Friday, Feb. 14 in a three-game series against Hofstra at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
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Complete Predicted Order of Finish
- Texas A&M (10) — 228
- Tennessee (1) — 215
- Arkansas (3) — 214
- LSU (1) — 204
- Florida (1) — 183
- Georgia — 165
- Vanderbilt — 156
- Texas — 146
- Mississippi State — 112
- Kentucky — 102
- Oklahoma — 101
- Auburn — 100
- Alabama — 98
- South Carolina — 61
- Ole Miss — 60
- Missouri — 31