The Vols aren't buying into the 1-seed curse: 'It's just all numbers'

You don't want to be the cover of Madden in the NFL, you don't want to win the Presidents' Trophy in the NHL and you certainly don't want to be the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Baseball Tournament.

Many believe that each of these create a curse that is certain to doom your season. In the case of the College World Series, no top-ranked team has won the event since Miami did so in 1999.

Tennessee baseball isn't worried, though. It travels to Omaha as the No. 1 seed and the biggest target on its back. However, to head coach Tony Vitello and his players, there is no additional weight or credence to the over two-decade drought.

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At the end of the day, the Vols just see it as numbers.

Both Vitello and starting pitcher Drew Beam lessened it to these 'numbers' in the first sentence of their answers when asked about the supposed curse. Beam left it at that while saying 'the game will play itself' at the end of the day. Vitello added more to his belief, though

For the Vols head coach who steered the program to a 1-seed just two seasons ago before falling in the super regionals, it just speaks to the difficulty of the tournament. He admitted that in the regional stage seeding might matter, but once you get to the super regionals and especially the College World Series, you can throw all of that out the window.

He pointed to SEC foe Florida as an example. Following the SEC Tournament, some thought the Gators might be on the outside looking in with a weak resume that featured a 13-17 mark in conference play. However, they got into the field and have now made a run all the way to being one the final eight teams.

"Once you get here, there aren't really any underdogs or anything like that," Vitello said. "I talk with (Florida coach Kevin O'Sullivan) throughout the year, and they have a team like we had last year. There's plenty of talent, but they kind of had to go through figure out what combination works and overcome some things, and kudos to them for making it here. All you have to do is stand next to (Jac Caglianone) for two seconds, and there's no more underdogs. They had to go on the road again like we did last year. Anybody can beat anybody. Everybody knows that."

While the numbers just not working out in the favor of 1-seeds being the first thing Vitello points to, he did have another observation on the trend. As outfielder Hunter Ensley first brought up, it's become an unavoidable storyline. Whenever you open social media, its a hot topic of discussion.

Vitello sees the timing of the stretch not much as a coincidence due to the nature of the internet and how unavoidable it has become.

"I'm not on Twitter, I mess around with Instagram a little bit," Vitello said. "You said 1999. If you jump on the Google machine, you'll see that's right about when social media started and then it picked up steam. I don't think those two things are coincidence."

Having to deal with these narratives isn't new, though. While Vitello didn't directly state these games, its not a stretch to think he implied a rematch with Southern Miss and what appeared to be a likely collision course with Wake Forest and Chase Burns in the super regionals as a possible distraction on the path to the CWS.

Navigating storylines similar to the curse is experience the team can fall back on.

"We've dealt with it this year," Vitello said. "We knew some things were coming when the NCAA committee -- not that there's any conspiracies or anything out there, but there was a couple of things that were going to happen with that bracket. Everybody predicted that in January. So our guys had to battle not only the teams that we were playing against, but some of those underlying storylines that were available in our regional and other spots like that and how you confront those storylines and those labels that people give, whether it's your seed or this can happen or can't happen. That now is part of competition for young kids."

Now, the task at hand is Florida State. The Vols will have to deal with one of the best arms in the country in Jamie Arnold as they look to stay out of the loser's bracket.

With the focus on the four teams in their side of the bracket, it becomes an even more dialed in view on Friday as they'll focus on just the Seminoles.

For Tennessee to break the curse and win the title as the top-seed, a game one win would go a long way.

"When we play Florida State, they're one of four teams, but they're the only one that matters on Friday," Vitello said. "And they are very, very good."

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