Brash. Bold.

Bat-flipping. Flame-throwing.

“Daddy” hat-wearing. Cheetah coat-rocking.

Villain. Dominant.

All of these things describe the Tennessee baseball team. The No. 1 team in America is as entrenched into its identity as any program in the sport. That’ll be documented even more in the postseason, if and when the Vols make another trip to Omaha for the College World Series.

The target on their backs has never been bigger, which clearly doesn’t bother them. I mean, at least it doesn’t look like it:

By the way, the guy pictured there, Trey Lipscomb, was 1 of 6 Vols who earned All-SEC honors from the league’s coaches, not including SEC Coach of the Year Tony Vitello.

It’s been a season for the ages on Rocky Top, surely unlike anything Tennessee experienced on the football field in the 21st century. The Vols’ football program hasn’t appeared in the AP Top 5 in 17 years, finished in the top 10 in 21 years or been No. 1 in America since they walked off the field as BCS National Champions of the 1998 season.

Perhaps that’s a contributing factor as to why Vitello’s squad has been welcomed with open arms. Losing 7 regular-season games and just 1 series all season is a step above “dominant.”

But could a college football program in this era could rival an identity like Tennessee baseball? I have doubts.

It’s not the celebrations. Lord knows the “Turnover Chain” era happened. Go figure that it was popularized by Miami, AKA the program that was bold and brash in its dominance long before Tennessee baseball. It was those Miami teams of the ’80s and early ’90s that prompted the NCAA to step in and come up with celebration rules. When the Canes demolished Texas 46-3 in the Cotton Bowl at the end of the 1990 season, they also earned an absurd 15 penalties and 202 penalty yards.

There’s a reason that with the exception of perhaps UNLV or Michigan basketball in the early 1990s, we haven’t seen anything quite like those Miami teams in the 2 major revenue college sports. That’s not to say there haven’t been attempts. That 2017 Miami team with Mark Richt wanted to channel that type of swagger, and we’ve seen outspoken figures like Steve Spurrier and Lane Kiffin who weren’t afraid to take a jab at an opposing coach.

Shoot, Jimbo Fisher’s heated response to Nick Saban’s claim about A&M “buying” its entire 2022 recruiting class just this past week was about as brash as it gets. For all we know, A&M is about to go on a warpath and become this “us against the world” team en route to a national title.

But even that would feel different in college football for a few reasons.

The scrutiny has never been greater. Quotes from a press conference, helmet-separating hits, taunting, etc. All of those things hit Twitter instantly and magnify said target. In this 24-hour news cycle, any sort of blowback takes on a different meaning than it did 30 years ago. In addition to the game being officiated differently now, all of these games are televised, too. Even a No. 1 team in college football that embodied that cockiness and won every game 56-0 would prompt rich boosters to make that cliché determination about whether a team is “doing it the right way.”

The margin for error in college football is also different. That 2017 Miami team is the perfect example. It was fine to embrace the Turnover Chain and celebrate the return of “The U” when the Canes were destroying Notre Dame. But what about when they lost to unranked Pitt? Remember when Pat Narduzzi flipped the script and called his shot at halftime against an 11-0 Miami team?

Narduzzi delivered. Clemson also humbled Miami in the ACC Championship with a 38-3 beatdown a week later. And just like that, Miami became a punchline instead of a game-changer. There’s risk in being the villain. Or rather, embracing the villain role.

Spiked shoulder pads to celebrate a turnover didn’t make Georgia a villain during its rise to a national title last season, especially in a time when seemingly everyone developed turnover celebrations. Kirby Smart didn’t get ejected and suspended from games for bumping an official like Vitello, nor did Georgia players make NIL money off T-shirts related to their celebrations like Drew Gilbert’s bat-flipping merchandise.

Maybe part of that is because we dissect failure in a different way in baseball. In a sport in which success 3 out of 10 times is considered a victory, failure isn’t as magnified in baseball as it is in football. Tennessee lost 7 regular-season games and it was a historic year. Alabama lost a total of 10 games in the entire Playoff era, and Tide fans could tell you every detail about each occurrence.

That’s the other element to this. Could you picture Nick Saban allowing a fraction of the extra off-field curricular activities that Vitello does? That’s not to say Saban’s way is the only way because as the Tennessee coach said before, there’s nothing wrong with being loose and having fun in a mental sport like baseball. It’s still a stark contrast to see a coach publicly celebrate like this after ending another team’s season:

To be clear, nobody is saying that Alabama players are robots. Just last year, the Tide popularized celebrating a touchdown with a crane kick from “Cobra Kai.”

Of course, it also became something that was used against the Tide in defeat (in all sports):

Welcome to the internet age, where any sign of personality can and will be used against you.

For whatever reason, though, there’s something about pimping a home run and flipping a bat 30 feet into the air that seems a bit more, um, aggressive than a crane kick pose.

The fear of being humbled or unnecessarily increasing that target is why college football programs don’t embrace that. Sure, they might have an “us against the world” mantra, and they might have a coach or starting quarterback who comes off as brash like a Baker Mayfield.

But gone are the days in which you’ll see a college football program step off the plane at a national championship rocking full army fatigues. The 1986 Miami squad will never live that down. Why? Because when you turn the ball over 7 times, score 10 points and lose as a touchdown favorite, well, people don’t forget that.

We don’t know yet how history will remember the 2022 Tennessee baseball team. It’ll be public enemy No. 1 every time it leaves the friendly confines of Lindsey Nelson Stadium. That’s not anything new. The Vols’ legacy will ultimately be defined by whether they win the last one in Omaha. If they don’t, the anti-Tennessee crowd will play the results and cite its brash nature as its reason for coming up short  … while conveniently ignoring that winning a national title is extremely difficult and the No. 1 overall seed hasn’t done so since 1999.

Win or lose, you won’t see a college football comp to Tennessee baseball anytime soon. At least not to that extent.

Cheetah coats and “Daddy” hats will remain synonymous with the Vols.