Tennessee baseball was ranked No. 2 in a preseason poll for the second consecutive day on Tuesday. This time it was in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll.
The Vols received 10 first-place votes in the publication’s preseason ranking before being slotted behind Texas A&M, who is the consensus No. 1 team in college baseball heading into the 2025 season.
Tennessee is now a consensus top-five team in college baseball. The NCBWA ranked UT at No. 2 on Monday, while Baseball America ranked the Vols No. 3 last week, D1Baseball.com ranked them No. 4 in late January and Perfect Game slotted them at No. 5 just after the New Year.
There were 11 SEC teams ranked in the coaches poll. The Aggies and Vols were joined by LSU (No. 3), Arkansas (No. 5), Georgia (No. 9), Florida (No. 10), Texas (No. 13), Vanderbilt (No. 18), Mississippi State (No. 19), Kentucky (No. 24) and Oklahoma (No. 25).
Tennessee will begin Tony Vitello’s eighth season on Rocky Top when it hosts Hofstra for a three-game series beginning on Feb. 14. It’ll be the first of three nonconference opponents that UT hosts for a weekend series before conference play begins. UT will also host Samford (Feb. 21-23) and St. Bonaventure (March 7-9).
The Volunteers will play 14 midweek games throughout the season. It’ll host UNC Asheville, North Alabama, Radford, Xavier, West Georgia, ETSU, Queens, Tennessee Tech, Bellarmine, Lipscomb, Northern Kentucky, Indiana State, Belmont and Alabama State.
The pair of games against Northern Kentucky and Indiana State are the most notable midweek contests. NKU reached the NCAA Tournament last season and played in the Knoxville Regional. The Vols beat the Norse 9-3 in the regional opener. Indiana State has reached the tournament four times since 2019, including hosting and winning a regional in 2023.
Tennessee’s big nonconference weekend will begin on the final day of February when it travels to Houston, Texas to play in the Astros Foundation College Classic. UT will play Oklahoma State in the first of three games at Daikin Park — the home of the Houston Astros — on Feb. 28 at 4:05 p.m. ET. The Volunteers will then play Rice on Saturday, March 1 at 12:05 p.m. before rounding out the weekend against Arizona on Sunday, March 2 at 12:05.
Each team in the SEC will play 10 leagues series before heading to Hoover, Ala. May 20-25 to play in the SEC Tournament. Notably, Tennessee does not play the SEC’s newest members in Texas and Oklahoma’s first time competing in the league.
Each of UT’s first three home SEC series —Florida, Texas A&M and Kentucky — are against 2024 College World Series participants. Tennessee will begin SEC play the weekend of March 14-16 when it welcomes arch-rival Florida to Knoxville. Conference play will run through May 15-17, when the Volunteers end the regular season with a trip to Tony Vitello’s old stomping grounds to face Arkansas in Fayetteville.
Eight of the Vols’ 10 SEC opponents played in an NCAA regional last season. Three of those teams advanced to an NCAA Super Regional. Tennessee’s showdown with Texas A&M the weekend of April 4-6 will be a rematch of last year’s CWS Final.
You can view Tennessee’s complete 2025 baseball scheduled by clicking this link.
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