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Overreacting to everything I saw.
College Baseball

10 things I’m absolutely overreacting to after the 2024 College World Series

Chris Wright

By Chris Wright

Published:

Texas A&M just lost the College World Series, its head coach and likely its best player and several other starters.

Meanwhile, the team most of y’all love to hate is still eating ice cubes off the grass in Omaha.

So, how was your week?

Those are among the 10 things I’m absolutely overreacting to after a thrilling end to the 2024 college baseball season.

10. Really, Schloss?

Hours after losing Game 3 of the College World Series, coach Jim Schlossnagle transferred from Texas A&M to Texas.

(I didn’t even realize he entered the portal. Sneaky.)

Minutes after losing Game 3 of the College World Series, Schlossnagle was asked about his future at Texas A&M. Oh, the horror of asking a question about a topic that leaked out hours before the biggest game of his coaching career. Distractions, anyone?

Instead of answering a perfectly legitimate and necessary question — the final question, by the way, of a 12-minute postgame news conference — Schloss indignantly attacked the reporter who asked it, labeling it “selfish.”

I admonished Schloss’ response in real time. It was childish but somewhat predictable. I’ve been in those situations, asking difficult questions. I understand you’re dealing with a disappointed and emotional head coach just minutes after a legacy-defining championship loss. It’s not an ideal setting, but just like coaches have a job to do, so do reporters.

The question was 100% fair, ethical and timely. There’s no debating otherwise.

I’m not overreacting to the decision. I’m overreacting to the manner in which he handled it. Schloss is free to do what he wants. I mean, he transferred from TCU to A&M just 3 years ago. The fact he left again so soon can’t be that shocking. Nor can the reports that this deal was done before the NCAA Tournament even began. Of course, Schloss shot down the timing narrative.

He said Wednesday at his introductory press conference that he never talked with Texas AD (and close friend/former boss at TCU) Chris Del Conte about the job until Tuesday, after the Aggies lost. That’s plausible. But that’s also why coaches have agents who negotiate behind the scenes, ahead of the storm.

I don’t believe for one second that this decision was made this week, much less after a face-to-face meeting Tuesday.

Now, did Schloss’ looming departure impact Texas A&M’s quest to win its first CWS title? That’ll forever remain open for interpretation in the minds of Aggies fans.

9. ECU coach wasn’t talking about Schloss, but …

If you follow college baseball even a little bit, you who ECU coach Cliff Godwin is, and you know he isn’t a fan of the transfer portal.

Godwin is a Pirate, through and through. He starred there and after years of climbing the coaching ladder at various stops, he returned home to become ECU’s head coach after the 2014 season. While chastising the reporter, Schlossnagle said he came to Texas A&M in 2022 with the intent to never coach anywhere again. Those were hollow words, obviously. In Godwin’s case, it’s easy to see him retiring as a Pirate. He is ECU. He is ECU baseball.

So when Godwin hopped on a podcast recently and lamented the fact that he didn’t know that 2 pitchers who threw in the Pirates’ season-ending loss to Evansville already knew they were transferring, it carries weight. Godwin said had he known, he wouldn’t have pitched either because neither was fully committed to being a Pirate.

It makes you wonder, no?

8. Tony Vitello is Lane Kiffin — with a ring

Unabashedly flamboyant. Players’ coach. Life of the party? Innovative? The ladies’ choice? A coach you either love … or love to hate.

Tony Vitello is to college baseball what Lane Kiffin is to college football. Except, now Vitello has a ring that validates his methodology and trumps any strays thrown his way.

Vitello eating ice and racing into the stands to celebrate Tennessee’s first CWS title isn’t too much different from Kiffin raising his hands to signal a TD … as his QB is about to unleash a double-move go route that he designed.

Greg McElroy criticized Vitello’s behavior after the Vols held on to beat A&M. The celebration was wild, no doubt. I found it genuine and refreshing — and perfectly on brand. McElroy found it irritating and offensive. He said Nick Saban wouldn’t have acted that way. He’s right on that front. But he’s wrong in the assessment that Vitello’s energy and passion are somehow bad for Tennessee baseball.

Vitello’s energy is exactly what makes Tennessee baseball must-see.

“He’s like a WWE character and it’s embarrassing, seriously,” McElroy said. “To be an adult, I’d be appalled. I really would. I know he wins and he’s great and the kids love him and all that stuff. That’s awesome, but if that was a leader of my organization I would have to have a little talking to him. I just would. It’s unbelievable.”

Give McElroy credit, though. Whether due to backlash or sincere regret, McElroy walked back his comments and apologized for raining on Tennessee’s parade.

7. That No. 1 jersey, all the swag …

You wear No. 1 at Tennessee, you better bring something to the ballpark.

Condredge Holloway, a 2-way star/pioneer we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about, wore No. 1 while playing shortstop for the Vols in the early 1970s. (Condredge is best known as the first black QB in the SEC, but he was an All-American in baseball, too, and is in the College Baseball Hall of Fame.)

RA Dickey, the Vols’ dominate ace in the mid-1990s, wore No. 1, too.

In 2015, Tennessee’s retired the No. 1 jersey to honor Holloway, but the best way to honor greatness is to repeat it — and that’s exactly what the Vitello-era players are doing.

Nobody will ever forget bat-flipping Drew Gilbert, the brash posterchild for how Vitello wants to play and the perfect prelude to Christian Moore, who just put together the single greatest offensive season in program history, smashing a single-season record 34 home runs while hitting .375 and driving in 74.

Wearing Tennessee’s No. 1 jersey might not have the history of LSU football’s No. 7 or Ole Miss’ No. 38, but it’s every bit as much of an honor.

6. 6 numbers to remember from the 2024 season

75: Career home runs for Jac Caglianone, breaking Florida’s program record, 3rd all-time in SEC history.

30-30: Caglianone became just the 2nd player in D-I history to hit 30 or more home runs twice in a career.

20-20-20: LSU star Tommy White became the 7th player in D-I history to hit 20 or more home runs in 3 seasons. White also hit 75 career home runs, which would tie him with Caglianone for 3rd all-time in SEC history if you include the 27 he hit as a freshman at NC State.

17.25: Hagen Smith’s strikeouts per 9 innings, a single-season SEC record.

9: Consecutive games that Caglianone hit a home run in, matching the NCAA record.

5: Consecutive College World Series champions from the SEC, all different schools: (Tennessee, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt). No conference has won 5 in a row since USC’s glory days in the early 1970s.

5. 5 Charlie Condon numbers to remember

37: Home runs, led the NCAA, a BBCOR-era record, 2nd-most all-time in the SEC and tied for 5th all-time in Division I.

.433: Batting average, led the NCAA, best in an SEC full season since Tennessee’s Chris Burke hit .435 in 2001.

3: Players who led the NCAA in home runs and batting average in the same season: Condon, Mike Smith (Indiana, 1992) and Bryce Brentz (Middle Tennessee, 2009).

.410: Career batting average, 5th all-time in SEC history, highest in the 2000s.

1.009: Slugging percentage, the first SEC player to slug 1.000 and the first D-I player to do so since 1998.

4. 4 biggest what-ifs of the 2024 season …

1. What if Chase Burns had transferred from Tennessee to Florida, instead of Wake Forest? Florida’s biggest problem all season was its inconsistent starting pitching. And the Gators still made it to the CWS Final Four.

2. What if there had been 1 out, instead of 2, when Kavares Tears mashed that long drive to right-center that scored Hunter Ensley with the eventual winning run of the College World Series? With 2 outs, Ensley was sprinting on contact. With 1 out, he has to wait and judge and probably is held at 3rd base — and we would have been robbed of the greatest slide in CWS history.

3. What if Schlossnagle had turned to All-SEC closer of the year Evan Aschenbeck in the 7th inning of Game 2 to try to close out Tennessee? Expecting Aschenbeck to get 7, 8 or 9 outs after throwing 46 pitches the night before wasn’t fair or realistic. But he might have been good for 4 or 6, enough to potentially give the Aggies’ a 1-run lead heading into the 9th.

4. What if either umpire (home plate or 3rd base) ruled that Blake Burke did swing on his 2-strike check-swing against FSU? A strikeout ends the game, so we know Tennessee would have lost that game and been forced to fight back through the loser’s bracket. We’ll never know whether the Vols could have actually done it. Only 3 teams in the 21st Century have lost their opening game in Omaha and rallied to win it all.

3. SEC players who hit 30+ HRs in 2024

Three might not sound like much, especially during a year in which balls flew into stands at a record rate.

But consider this: As great as the SEC has been, and as long as they’ve been playing this sport, only 3 players in history had ever hit 30 home runs in a season.

Until this year, when Condon (37), Cags (35) and Moore (33) rewrote the record book.

2. The race to land Jace …

Jace LaViolette smashed 29 home runs — 5 shy of matching a Texas A&M program record — and led the Aggies to the brink of the program’s first College World Series title.

With 50 career home runs, the rising junior has a realistic shot at breaking Eddy Furniss’ SEC career record of 80.

That is, of course, if LaViolette stays in the SEC.

Hours after Schlossnagle bolted for bitter rival Texas, LaViolette (and others) entered the transfer portal.

Already a projected No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 MLB Draft, he’ll be the most coveted player in this year’s portal.

The bar is impossibly high to supplant Paul Skenes as the most significant transfer in SEC baseball history, but depending on his impact in 2025, LaViolette could end up alongside Skenes and Tommy White on the Mount Rushmore of portal acquisitions.

1. Another SEC sweep …

For the 2nd time (and first since 2014), the SEC swept all 4 of college baseball’s most coveted awards.

  • CWS champion: Tennessee
  • Golden Spikes Award: Charlie Condon, Georgia
  • John Olerud Award: Jac Caglianone, Florida
  • Pitcher of the Year: Hagen Smith, Arkansas.

No other conference has pulled off that quartet accomplishment in the same season.

It really does mean more … so, more, please in 2025.

Chris Wright
Chris Wright

Managing Editor

A 30-time APSE award-winning editor with previous stints at the Miami Herald, The Indianapolis Star and News & Observer, Executive Editor Chris Wright oversees editorial operations for Saturday Down South.

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