Browsing: sense

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Tony Vitello (Danny Parker/Four Seam Images)

Shock isnâ€t rare in college baseball, but this was different. When word broke that Tony Vitello had emerged as the leading candidate to manage the Giants, the reaction from coaches, agents and scouts was immediate and unanimous: disbelief.

Phones were abuzz within minutes in a cascade of texts from people trying to process how the sportâ€s most magnetic figure could suddenly be headed for a major league dugout.

But the disbelief didnâ€t last. It never does when the logic is this clear. Soon after the uproar, the tone shifted from confusion to clarity.

Of course itâ€s Vitello. Of course it makes sense.

“Itâ€s brilliant,†one SEC coach told Baseball America.

The more you think about it, the more obvious it becomes.

Vitelloâ€s charisma, relentlessness and player-first intensity have long belonged to a higher tier. He built Tennessee like a pro franchise, recruited like a front office with ample financial backing and coached like he was sure college baseball was merely the sportâ€s next great developmental frontier.

And maybe thatâ€s exactly what it is. In an era when college players reach the majors faster than ever and with the draft possibly shrinking again in 2027, the distance between the SEC and the show has never been smaller. Someone was bound to cross it. Itâ€s fitting that the one to do it is the coach who blurred that line more than anyone else.

Vitello will get his chance now. He’ll replace Bob Melvin as the Giants’ manager, becoming the first skipper ever to job directly from college to the pros.

From the moment he arrived in Knoxville in the summer of 2017, Vitello began building Tennessee as if it were a major league organization disguised as a college program. His first step was assembling a staff fluent in analytics and data—long before that became standard across the college game. Tennesseeâ€s recruiting classes were sculpted with information and precision, and the results spoke for themselves: high-round draft picks, immediate contributors and a roster that played with the polish of a professional system.

The success came fast and kept building.

After taking the Volunteers to Omaha in 2021 and 2023, he captured the first national championship in program history in 2024 and won Baseball America’s College Coach of the Year Award. He was rewarded for his accomplishments with a record five-year deal that made him one of the highest-paid coaches in the game.

During his rise to success, Vitello’s rosters werenâ€t just talented, they were balanced, modern, built through every avenue available. From prep recruits and portal transfers to returning veterans who believed in his vision, Vitello gathered like minds and talented players. That blend became his blueprint, proof that Tennesseeâ€s rise wasnâ€t accidental or cyclical. It was structural.

At the American Baseball Coaches Association convention this January, Vitello addressed a packed ballroom of coaches from every level of the game. He told them Tennesseeâ€s transformation wasnâ€t just about better players or sharper data—it was about belief. Buy-in, he said, grew slowly and deliberately, first from his staff, then from his players and then from an entire community. Anyone whoâ€s been around Tennessee knows who set that tone.

Vitello was the fulcrum. The energy, the conviction, the unrelenting insistence that Tennessee could play, act and win like a professional outfit.

Vitelloâ€s style wasnâ€t for everyone. His Tennessee teams carried themselves with the same edge he did—self-assured to the point of arrogance and unapologetic about it. As such, the Volunteers became college baseballâ€s lightning rod. They were brash, emotional and occasionally excessive, but always impossible to ignore. To critics, they were over the top. To everyone inside the program, they were simply reflecting their coach.

Vitello never hid behind diplomacy. He said what others in his position preferred to tiptoe around.

Heâ€s spoken candidly about the damage tampering has done to the transfer portal, a subject many high-major coaches have treated as radioactive. And in April, he offered one of his more memorable swings—a not-so-subtle jab at former Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who left Knoxville amid an NIL-fueled storm.

“All I want every year when we come to work is a bunch of guys that want to be at our place, and if they donâ€t, thatâ€s fine,†Vitello said. “Thatâ€s just the world we live in now. And if youâ€re a Vol football fan, just watch the movie Friday.â€

He was referring, of course, to the movieâ€s famous “Bye Felicia†line.

Thatâ€s Vitello in full—unfiltered, confident and utterly uninterested in managing his image. And maybe thatâ€s exactly what the Giants see. Someone willing to be bold, to lead with conviction, to do it his way even when it risks making people uncomfortable.

Vitello’s players never seemed to mind. In fact, they adored it.

“Heâ€s the best coach Iâ€ve ever played for,†former Volunteer outfielder Hunter Ensley told Baseball America earlier this year. “You always know where you stand with him. And you always want to prove him right.â€

If the fit still sounds unconventional, take a closer look at the Giants†roster construction.

Fifteen of the organizationâ€s 18 draft picks in 2025 came from four-year or junior colleges. The year before, 17 of 18 did. San Francisco has spent two straight drafts mining the college ranks as aggressively as any club in baseball, valuing polish, maturity and competitive edge over projection. In other words, the very traits Vitello has spent his career developing.

That trend isnâ€t limited to the draft, either. Several of the Giants†cornerstone players—and even a handful of their highest touted international signees—are still college age. Itâ€s a roster that could skew younger over the next few years, filled with players who came up through the same environments Vitello mastered. The Giants donâ€t need someone to teach professionalism so much as they need someone who understands what modern player development looks like at its most efficient level.

And Vitello is fluent in that language.

Really, this is a no-risk move for Vitello. He could go to San Francisco and be wildly successful, proving right the chorus of voices calling the hire brilliant.

Or it could unravel. This kind of leap is unprecedented. Never has a college coach jumped straight into a major league dugout with no professional experience, no minor league stops and no apprenticeship under a big league manager. It will test every part of his adaptability.

Thatâ€s the reality of managing at the major league level: Respect isnâ€t granted by resume. Itâ€s earned daily in a clubhouse filled with men who have spent years, sometimes decades, in the game. Vitello will have to prove himself all over again. Not to fans, but to players who may be 10 or 15 years older than the ones heâ€s used to coaching.

But even in failure, thereâ€s no real downside. If it doesnâ€t work out, Vitello could return to college baseball as the most coveted free agent coach in the country. Unless someone like LSUâ€s Jay Johnson were to move in the same offseason, no hire in the sport would draw more attention.

Vitello has already reached the summit of college baseball. Heâ€s built a national champion, reshaped an SEC cellar-dweller into a giant and changed the way programs think about building rosters.

When youâ€ve done all that, why not take a risk-free swing at the next level?

Maybe thatâ€s what makes this so compelling. Vitello isnâ€t chasing relevance. Heâ€s redefining it.

The sport is changing, the boundaries are blurring and for the first time, college baseball has produced a coach too dynamic to stay contained by it. Whether this works or flames out, it says something about where the game is headed.

The Giants are betting on the future. Vitello, in many ways, is already there.

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Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was among the masses who were caught off-guard by the Cleveland Browns sending veteran quarterback Joe Flacco to the Cincinnati Bengals in a rare in-division trade last week.

“It was shocking to me,” Tomlin said Monday, per ESPN’s Brooke Pryor. “[Browns general manager] Andrew Berry must be a lot smarter than me or us because it doesn’t make sense to me to trade a quarterback that you think enough of to be a day 1 starter to a divisional opponent.”

Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski was asked about Tomlin’s criticism of the Flacco trade on Monday, and he told reporters, “I don’t have a comment on that.”

Cleveland had benched Flacco and inserted rookie quarterback Dillon Gabriel as the starter in Week 5. Rather than holding onto the aging vet, the Browns traded him to the Bengals, who were struggling at the quarterback position after losing star signal-caller Joe Burrow to toe surgery.

The Steelers easily handled the Flacco-less Browns with a 23-9 win on Sunday. Gabriel completed 29 of his 52 passes for 221 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions while being sacked six times.

Rather than facing Flacco with Cleveland on Sunday, Pittsburgh will meet its old nemesis when it faces Cincinnati on Thursday Night Football to kick off Week 7. In his Bengals debut, Flacco threw for 219 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions on 29-of-45 passing in Sunday’s 27-18 loss to the Green Bay Packers.

The Steelers will be seeking their fourth straight win on Thursday, so it can be expected that Tomlin will have his players amped up to take on Flacco and the Bengals as they try to continue to establish supremacy in the AFC North.

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Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin isn’t a fan of his team’s SEC schedule for the 2026 season.

Kiffin said that the inclusion of Oklahoma as an annual opponent for the Rebels “doesn’t make any sense,” per the Associated Press (h/t ESPN).

“We don’t have anything in common with them or our fans,” Kiffin explained. “That’s unfortunate with so many great teams that we’ve played for a long time here.”

The SEC recently released its nine-game schedule for 2026, which features each team facing off against three conference rivals on an annual basis for the next four seasons. The annual opponents for Ole Miss are LSU, Mississippi State and Oklahoma.

Teams will also play against each conference opponent every two years as part of the updated schedule.

The Rebels and Sooners don’t have much of a shared history, as they’ve only met twice since 1999. Ole Miss won both contests.

Oklahoma spent just over two decades in the Big 12 before joining the SEC ahead of the 2024 season.

Despite the lack of an established rivalry, both schools could develop one with yearly matchups incoming. Oklahoma and Ole Miss are undefeated to start the 2025 season and were ranked No. 7 and No. 13 in the latest AP Top 25 poll, respectively.

The two teams will also face off this year, with the Rebels traveling to battle the Sooners on Oct. 25.

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