Tennessee coach offers clear warning to Arkansas Athletics, Hogs fans

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello joined the "Chuck and Bo Show" earlier this week on the radio in Northwest Arkansas and offered a stark warning to not only Arkansas fans, but the athletics department itself — essentially, do not take Dave Van Horn for granted.

Perhaps the most startling of what he had to say of the two groups was that he felt the University of Arkansas has a history of taking advantage of Van Horn and how much he loves the program and the school.

"I think I'll go out on a limb, and I don't know if it's okay to share with you guys, from my perspective, from being there, I think his loyalty to the university has been taken advantage of a little bit," Vitello said. "And I hope they make it obvious that that's where he's going to end his career, and I hope they reward him for what he's done."

A big part of that observation most likely stems from how the university has handled Van Horn financially. When Vitello left the Razorbacks staff as an assistant in 2017 to take over a crumbling Tennessee program where he quickly almost doubled his mentor's salary with a $1.5 million per year deal while Van Horn collected less than a million despite decades of success and experience, including multiple College World Series appearances.

Not long after Van Horn was named SEC Coach of the Year in 2021, Arkansas bumped him up past the $1 million mark, but soon after, Tennessee made Vitello the highest coach in baseball with a $3 million contract with additional incentives to make the pot even sweeter.

It's the equivalent of if Nick Saban had made nearly half of what his former assistant Kirby Smart got to take over Georgia only to have Smart nearly double what Alabama was paying Saban just a few years after Smart got settled in Athens.

It wouldn't happen. Yet, that's exactly the case at Arkansas in baseball, so Vitello has made an effort to indirectly point that out, although there are probably additional factors hidden behind his warning.

As far as his words to the fans the number one concern was whether certain portions of the base had gotten grumpy because Van Horn has yet to lead Arkansas to a national championship.

"I think the one thing I would say about my former boss in coach Van Horn, you can't judge a coach like Rick Barnes based off how a tournament goes, because, again, crazy things can happen, and you need breaks this time of year to get what you want. But if you look at a whole body of work, he's the winningest coach out there by percentage," Vitello said. "... I think people get spoiled and don't realize how good they have it. And sometimes, you look for what you don't have instead of enjoying what you do have and you got a spoiled fan base there [at Arkansas], and they should recognize that."

The general observation from covering the program the past several years is not that fans are angry Van Horn hasn't won a championship. Instead, it's more of an anxiousness that a man who deserves his championship moment may not get it before his time is up.

Razorbacks fans generally understand that Van Horn didn't drop the pop-up. They get that he wasn't responsible for throwing that final strike against Oregon State. They know he had no control over the bats going ice cold against an Ole Miss team that was last into the field back in 2022 with the CWS championship series on the line.

Sure, there are probably a small handful of loud people out there who get their underwear twisted any year Arkansas doesn't win the national championship, but the lack of appreciation for Van Horn doesn't extend much more than that tiny circle. Now, for the accusation that Razorbacks fans are spoiled, that is true.

It's hard for them not to be considering Van Horn's success. The Hogs never go more than four years without packing for Omaha, they're always near the top of the SEC, and they're almost always going to be in the Top 10 in the country and host a regional.

Missing the tournament all together is something Arkansas fans can't picture in their heads, and that's because of the monster Van Horn has created. Still, Vitello wants Razorbacks supporters to reflect on that and appreciate it for the miracle it truly is.

"At University of Mississippi, the loud voices criticized Coach [Mike] Bianco just because their year ends shorter than they wanted to, and everybody in the SEC always wants more, but the regular, average, or majority of fans know Coach Bianco, he created that thing out of dust, and he also won a national championship," Vitello said. "So as great as he's done there, I don't mind saying Coach Van Horn has done better for Razorback Nation."

In the end, Vitello says it's the simplicity of Van Horn's approach that makes what fans are experiencing possible. So long as proper appreciation is shown, it's something the former Razorbacks assistant thinks will continue to guarantee success on the diamond.

"He keeps it simple, never sweats the small stuff, is always very confident, and the players can sense that," Vitellos said. "And I've been guilty at times as a young coach not being confident or rushing things, or, I won't say panicking, but, you know, the players can sense what you got going on, and as a Razorback, you have no option other than to keep things simple, compete your butt off, play hard, and also expect to win. And so what you get is a winning product year in and year out."

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