Tony Vitello explains why it was Aaron Combs on short rest to win national championship

Sports personalities Trey Wingo and Kevin Frazer breakdown some of the best ‘what if’ scenarios in sports on the Alternate Routes podcast. Bringing it closer to home, there’s some obvious examples for Tennessee athletics over the years.

Tennessee baseball national champion coach Tony Vitello was asked by Austin Price in the season three premier of Vol Club Confidential if there was ever a moment – good or bad – where he second-guessed himself and if he wondered whether the outcome would have changed if he chose the other path.

The soon-to-be eighth-year skipper on Rocky Top shared a few examples but landed on whether or not to go with righty Aaron Combs in the ninth inning of game three of the College World Series this past June.

Obviously, we know now, that Combs came on and nailed down the final three outs of the historic 6-5 Tennessee win over Texas A&M to claim the first national championship in program history on June 24. But, the decision to give the ball to the reliable closer proved to be a difficult task at the time.

“Kirby [Connell] comes in – and to be honest with you, has his first really successful outing against [Texas] A&M. They had taken some good swings against him in Hoover and in Omaha,” Vitello told Price in the exclusive. “He gets two massive outs for us. Celebrates like crazy. Do you want to send him back out there after the way celebrated the way that he did and it hadn’t’ gone as well or do you want to give [Aaron] Combs the inning and give him the ball?”

Vitello called the scene in the Tennessee dugout between him, pitching coach Frank Anderson and the rest of the staff a ‘comedy show’ and a ‘disaster’ at the time. Combs had thrown 63 pitches the day before to earn the win and keep the season alive for a winner-take-all game three in the College World Series. Did he have enough gas left in the tank?

Luckily for Vitello, Tennessee’s third assistant coach made the key observation in Combs’ favor and that’s how the staff finalized the decision.

“Eventually, Richard Jackson, who is moving on to bigger and better things in the business world, I give him the most credit. He was just really descriptive on how Combs was throwing the ball down in the bullpen,” Vitello recalled. “That gave us the final confidence to let him start the ninth and like a savvy veteran, he kind of knew what he could give up and couldn’t give up. [He] navigated through that very challenging inning the way that we wanted him to.”

It wasn’t all roses, to say the least.

With the Vols leading 6-3, Combs surrendered a leadoff double to Gavin Grahovac . An out later, the base runner advanced to third on a wild pitch. Jackson Appel drove him in on a single to left, cutting the score to 6-4 with just one out. With the tying run at the plate, Combs struck out Hayden Scott for the second out, but Appel moved to second on a defensive indifference. He then moved to third on a balk call that created one of the more meme worthy moments of the 2024 sports year.

Combs simply laughed. He stood there on the pitcher’s mound with two outs in game three of the College World Series smiling like he had just struck out the leadoff hitter. He wasn’t bothered. He was in control. And Tennessee knew it was in hand.

“We got this game. We got this game…That’s a moment where ‘we got this.’” Vitello remembered. “There was a moment where Liam Spence, our former shortstop, waved into our dugout before a game three and it was like, that’s a good vibe. That’s good karma that he is here. There were a bunch of times that day where it gave you reason to relax – where if you really write it down on a piece of paper, your whole season comes down to one game. That’s very rare for baseball because of double elimination. But that was the final moment of that feeling where if he’s out there grinning and able to slow the moment down like that, then he’ll finish the job.”

A wild pitch scored the runner and cut the deficit to only one for the Aggies – but it didn’t matter. Combs was locked into the hitter at the plate. Ted Burton , who represented the tying run in the 6-5 ballgame, struck out and Tennessee had won it all.

“Combsy is very intense, but he’s also relaxed enough to where he can laugh at himself or carry on a proper conversation,” Vitello said. “With [catcher] Cal Stark , the final pitch of the game. They had an argument over what pitch he was going to throw. Colmsy had conviction in him that he wanted to go to the breaker. Cal kept going one, one one [fastball]. And eventually breaking ball is strike three and the rest is history.”

Coaches, like Vitello, will always second-guess themselves when things go wrong. Sometimes it’s the players who bail them out. Regardless of the pitch count the day before, Combs was meant to close out the national championship. And despite the roller-coaster, it was a job well done.

So, don’t worry Tony. Credit where credit is due to trust your guys – both coach [Jackson] and player [Combs]. He didn’t second-guess himself and the Vols have a national championship because of it.

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