We’re On To Arkansas For A Series That Surely Won’t Be Toxic At All

By Cody McClure

Tennessee has won the Knoxville Regional, as expected.

It now turns its attention to the Fayetteville Super Regional for a three-game series against Arkansas.

It will be the Vols’ fifth consecutive appearance in the supers — a hell of a feat.

The schedule has officially been set for the Vols and Hogs to compete Saturday through Monday.

Game 1 is 5 p.m. Saturday on ESPN. Game 2 is 3 p.m. Sunday on ESPN. Game 3… to be determined.

It’s going to be a wild series. There’s no doubt about it.

Tony Vitello surely respects Dave Van Horn, but there’s a lot of passion behind that mentor-prodigy relationship.

Years after working under Van Horn at Arkansas, Vitello has gone on to do bigger and better things at Tennessee.

He’s solidified his program as the best in college baseball, arguably stealing that very title away from Arkansas.

There’s some jealousy there. The “OmaHogs” have been damn good over the years. But they’ve never reached the mountaintop.

Could this be their year? It would certainly be fitting for Arkansas to exorcise its Regional/Super Regional demons against Tennessee, of all programs.

I’m sure they would love that. They’ve already taken the regular season series against the Vols.

Then again, Van Horn’s Razorbacks haven’t reached Omaha since 2022. They’ve choked in three of the past four seasons.

Arkansas is currently a -130 favorite to win the series this weekend but the Vols won’t let that happen easily. You can get UT with even money.

These teams don’t like each other. And the fan bases… that’s a whole other level of hatred online.

Should Tennessee find a way to take two of the three games, it will appear in the College World Series for the fourth time in five years.

By that point in time, the top three seeds in the NCAA Tournament — Vanderbilt, Texas, and Arkansas — will have been eliminated.

We’ll see who else is still around, but the path will have been cleared to the point where Tennessee will be a popular pick to win it all.

You might say the Vols would have as good of a chance as anyone at that point to go ahead and win back-to-back nattys.

Of course, all that is hypothetical. It all hinges on winning this series vs. Arkansas.

I guess one would just have to ask themself, who do I really trust more to win this weekend?

Team A: choked before Omaha in three of the last four seasons and choked away a natty in 2018.

OR…

Team B: reached Omaha in three of the last four seasons and won last year’s natty.

For what it’s worth, this won’t be the first time Arkansas has tried to stand in the way of Tennessee winning a national title in a men’s team sport.

It’d be a real shame if Van Horn and the boys “stumbled and fumbled.”