Gentry EstesNashville Tennessean
Everything school? At the University of Tennessee, it’s a bold claim becoming more difficult to dispute.
What was already quite the school year for Vols sports got even better Monday night. And with the baseball team’s super-regional victory came the social-media flex. UT’s athletics account tweeted out a graphic that blended football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, softball and baseball with the words, “When we say everything … we mean everything.”
It’s not everything. Not technically. Seems that way, though, because the Vols are indeed thriving in marquee sports that people care most about.
UT's tweet boasted that it was the lone college since 1998 to win a BCS (or New Year’s Six) bowl game, have both hoops teams reach the NCAA Sweet 16 and have both softball and baseball advance to a College World Series in the same academic year.
With baseball yet to be counted, Tennessee is 10th in the Directors' Cup standings for this school year. UT placed 13th last year, and that was its highest finish since 2006-07. Depending on what happens in Omaha, the Vols could end up close to the top five this year.
And, hey, that’s great.
Well … actually ...
Let me rephrase: It’s really good.
An important piece is still missing. All these Vols success stories of late, yet Tennessee athletics hasn’t won an NCAA team championship in any sport in more than 14 years.
(Someone is going to email me about rugby or cheerleading and dance teams, but I'm talking about intercollegiate sports programs sponsored by the university's athletics department).
Tony Vitello’s baseball program has a chance in the coming days to end a Big Orange drought that's the second-longest among SEC schools, going back to Tennessee's 2009 women’s indoor track team.
For perspective on how long ago that indoor meet was, former Tennessee Titans training camp receiver Jacoby Ford won the 60-meter dash for Clemson. Ford’s final NFL regular-season game was in 2013 – which was also the same year the Vols last had a team finish as a national runner-up (it was softball).
Tennessee’s trophy cases aren't bare, of course, even if they've needed dusting. Outside of six national titles claimed in football, UT is credited by the NCAA with 16 all-time NCAA team championships. Comparatively, that's not bad. Eight were won on the basketball court by Pat Summitt’s Lady Vols (speaking of greatness). The others were a mix of track and cross country and one men’s swimming title in 1978.
But 14 years in Knoxville? The past 10 without so much as a second place?
It's truly hard to believe.
Best I could tell, Missouri is the only SEC school on a longer current stretch without a national team championship.
Across the state, Vanderbilt has won five NCAA team titles since 2014. Its bowling team took another just a couple of months ago.
Two of the Commodores’ other titles during that span were won in the same baseball stadium in which Tennessee will face LSU on Saturday night.
If you’re taking odds on which Tennessee program will be the next to get over this hump and win the big trophy, baseball would seem the most likely.
ESTES: Look out, College World Series: Tennessee baseball is hot at the perfect time
OMAHA BOUND: Tennessee baseball has become exactly what Tony Vitello expected it could
Football? We'll see. Josh Heupel’s Vols are on the rise, clearly, but those couple of defeats last season had a not-quite-yet feel. Basketball? Despite a lot of wins, neither of Tennessee’s two current coaches – Rick Barnes and Kellie Harper – have yet to lead the Vols past the Sweet 16 in the postseason.
While Tennessee has long been a serious contender in softball, the SEC has only won the Women’s College World Series three times, the last in 2015. Since then, Oklahoma has taken over a sport that happens to play its championship event in Oklahoma City, about 30 minutes away from the Sooners’ campus. And guess who’s about to join the SEC?
But then there’s baseball.
No conference is equal to the SEC in baseball. Nonetheless, Vitello’s Vols have sandwiched two College World Series appearances in the past three seasons around a 57-win team that was a No. 1 national seed. The Johnny-come-lately label no longer fits. Theirs is the profile of a legitimate powerhouse.
This Tennessee baseball team didn’t have an excellent regular season, but it always had the ingredients to make a deep run in Omaha. And sure enough, it’s cooking at the perfect time.
So why not these Vols? Why not now?
The Vols can claim to be a jack of all trades, but it’s overdue for them to prove a master of one.
Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Gentry_Estes.
