It’s year one of the Josh Elander era, and the rookie head coach is learning on the fly. Tennessee is coming off of an ugly three-game sweep at the hands of the Vanderbilt Commodores, with the Vols losing each game by one run a piece.
On Tuesday, Elander made a change. For the first time all season, Elander was in the dugout with his team for the entire game against Austin Peay.
“Had a lot of conversations after the weekend,” Elander said on Tuesday. “It was a tough one, right? And we just said, you
know, ‘hey, how can we communicate a little bit better as a staff.’ And I’ve always wanted to keep everything this year as similar as it was, just with the uniqueness of the change with (Tony Vitello), for the players between the lines and how it ran.”
Elander was Vitello’s third base coach for eight seasons in Knoxville. With a sudden change that saw Vitello head to the MLB, Elander wanted to keep things as similar as he could with the program. However, after a tough start to conference play, Elander pulled the trigger to make the move.
“But I just thought at this point, (pitching coach Josh Reynolds) and I are playing the game of, ‘hey, if this, then that,’ and then I’m trying to communicate from the third-base box,” Elander said. “So even just little things, like tonight, I got to sit down with Sawyer Deering after the inning, instead of running out to third base. Allows me to have a little bit more one-on-one time with those guys. But a lot of it was even the hitters for Chuck (Jeroloman) and I to be right there with the guys as they’re going up to the box. I love coaching third, but I think at this point for the team, it was the move and for our staff to be able to communicate on a higher level throughout the game.”
Elander assigned Tennessee director of program development Craig bell to be the new third base coach.
“Craig’s done it in a national championship game,” Elander said. “Has done it a long time over at Florida, had a ton of success doing it. I remember being real young in this league and watching him do it. He can do this at the high level. So we always talk about in this building, if you say you’re going to do something, you need to do it. So I told the team yesterday after we sat down as a staff and met throughout the course of late Sunday night. We were talking into Monday and when Craig was a little under the weather, it was like, ‘Hey, (Ross Kivett), by the way, you’re going over there today.’ So he did a good job. I’m glad he got hit by a ball, too. Hopefully it’ll slow him down a little bit. But yeah, that was where the thought process came from.”
Tennessee went on to beat Austin Peay 13-4. The Volunteers will be back in action this weekend, set to host LSU (Friday-Sunday).
