Tennessee is perhaps at its strongest when playing with emotion.
A common rule of thumb for opponents has been two-fold if knocking this Vols team off is in question: Score a lot of runs early and hang on for dear life and keep quiet while doing so.
Fighting Irish outfielder Ryan Cole is off to quite the start on the latter.
The Vols have made a habit of taking care of business against opponents who poke the bear. By extension, it’s become an identity of this team – but one founded in something tangible. Tennessee doesn’t just walk the walk, it talks the talk in that regard.
The Vols enter Friday’s Super Regional stage as the best team in the country by a pretty considerable margin. Tennessee has rattled off 11 straight wins and looks to make it 13 this weekend to advance to its second straight College World Series. Notre Dame, similarly, is on a hot streak of its own. The Fighting Irish downed No. 22 ranked Texas Tech and host school No. 16 Georgia Southern to face the Vols in Knoxville.
And Cole’s comments weren’t the only such comments by a Notre Dame representative this week. Head coach Link Jarrett made a comment about how a lot of Tennessee’s home runs on the season are a result of the dimensions of Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
The Vols lead the national home run race by 13 with 150 long balls on the season. For context, Tennessee has hit 35 home runs in its 23 road games compared to 115 in its remaining 40 home games at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
Eleven of those away home runs came against Mississippi State, one of the larger parks in the SEC.
“I don’t want our guys to look at it like it’s crazy power,” Jarrett said. “It is good power, but some of it is because of the park itself.”
Lindsey Nelson, with corner dimensions of just 320 and 330 left to right, is on the smaller side of college baseball parks. Especially in the SEC.
Regardless, it’s the setting for this weekend’s Super Regional matchup. First pitch is 6 p.m. Friday followed by a 2 p.m. start time on Saturday.
