Tony Vitello talks about Tennessee’s victory at the 2024 College World Series

Tennessee (60-13) defeated Texas A&M (53-14) 6-5 in Game 3 of the College World Series final at Charles Schwab Field Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska, on Monday.

Tennessee won its first national championship in program history.

Seventh-year head coach Tony Vitello summed up the Vols’ victory over Texas A&M and winning the College World Series.

“Very surreal,” Vitello said. “It’s hard to focus, which is good when you’re lost in the moment, I guess. I don’t have anything particularly intelligent to say about it, but first of all, I hope the fans who made this a crazy party, a crazy event, got the show they wanted and deserved.”

“Tonight clearly could have been the trophy for either team, so congratulations to Texas A&M. I mean, you meet players in Hoover and just on the field, and some of their core players in particular are just incredibly cool guys. Also, I got the opportunity to experience something different, the University of Missouri, so I owe a thank you to the coach at Texas A&M, who did a phenomenal job and made an incredible hire this year as well, so congratulations to coach (Jim) Schlossnagle and Texas A&M and their fans, who have always kind of blown me away since I was at Missouri. We went to a football game there, and it was incredible. Everyone was pretty friendly until Brad Smith did his thing, but Texas A&M has definitely won its fair share of football games. Enough rambling. There’s no better team for the University of Tennessee to win than a group of guys that were really the definition of a team. I think there’s no better play for our program as well than the game-winning run on the slide, a guy that’s just built with a lot of grit, and his teammates follow his lead, and it’s a great example of how this group has gotten things done.”