Tennessee Volunteers baseball has been disappointing, mediocre over the past two years. In 2007 the Vols finished the season with a 34-25 overall and 13-15 SEC record. In 2008 UT finished with a 27-29 overall and 12-18 SEC record.
The University of Tennessee's Head Baseball Coach Todd Raleigh was hired before last season and welcomes 16 newcomers to the 2009 squad. Under the leadership of Todd Raleigh, the Vols will try to return to their
prior winning ways this year.
Last years discussion follows:
Tennessee Vols baseball is going through some real choppy waters this year. After several mediocre seasons, long-time coach Rod Delmonico was fired -- despite his long record of success (prior to the last few years).
To read more about the good years, check out this article about Todd Helton: Best All-Time SEC Baseball Player.
The Volunteers new head baseball coach is Todd Raleigh (formerly coach at Western Carolina). The 2007 - 2008 Tennessee Vols baseball schedule includes 56 regular games where 16 will be against the 2007 NCAA Tournament teams. In the NCAA Ratings last year, 13 of the teams that the players will go up against finished in the top 64. Also in the schedule are four non-conference teams who made their way into the NCAA Regional last season.
Though Coach Raleigh states that the schedule is good with several strong opponents, he isn't completely happy with the way it turned out. The team gave up several of their home games in return for making an agreement that those same teams will agree to multiple home games in the future seasons. Raleigh hopes that once baseball stadium is complete that he will be able to get close to 40 home games.
The first home game is scheduled for February 22nd against Morehead State, which will be held at Robert M. Lindsay Field. February 22nd was selected per the NCAA mandate to create a true national Opening Day for college baseball across the nation. Due to the NCAA's new start day, the Tennessee Vols baseball team only gets to play three weekends before they have to enter into the NCAA tournament section of the schedule.
The home Southeastern Conference match-up for the series LSU on March 14th through the 16th, Florida on April 4th through the 6th, Alabama on April 11th through the 13th, Vanderbilt May 2nd through the 4th, and Kentucky on May 9th through the 11th.
The guys will head out onto the road to battle against familiar foes like Georgia on the 21st until the 23rd of March. Auburn will follow this on the 28th through the 30th of March, Arkansas on the 18th until the 20th of April, Mississippi State on the 25th of April until the 27th.
Finally wrapping up the regular season with games against South Carolina on the 15th to 17th of May. This season the Tennessee Vols baseball team will not go up against Ole Miss, the only team from the entire Southeastern Conference.
The team and their fans were notified of the exciting news that Fox Sports Net South on Southeastern Conference TV will televise two of the team's games. The Vols game against Florida on the 5th of April and the game where they go up against Vanderbilt on the 3rd of May. The broadcast will take place regionally.
In addition to this, SportSouth will be televising a number of the games, though neither the number nor the games, which will be selected, have been released into public knowledge yet.
UT has a long nine game stretch from March 5th until the 16th. From there the team will endure four straight road games on five separate occasions. Though both the Head coach and players hope that this will be the last time that the Tennessee Vols baseball team has to spend most of it's time on the road.
Due to the turbulence of the transition to a new coach;learning a new system, and the toughness of the SEC, we see Tennessee baseball coming in last in the SEC East. But, I hope we are wrong.
What do you think?
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