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It truly is a shame that Arkansas and Tennessee did not get matched up for a series this season. The two schools are developing a heated rivalry — at least between the fanbases.
Fans will say what they want, but players are starting to take notes, too. After Arkansas swept LSU over the weekend, second baseman Robert Moore made a comment directed toward the Volunteers.
“It’s easy to say you’re confident after sweeping LSU - but I think we’re pretty confident,” Moore said. “I think we’re going to go into the tournament and shake a lot of heads too with a team that’s at the top of the (SEC) East.”
That team at the top of the Eastern Division is No. 1 Tennessee, whose head coach Tony Vitello was tossed from Saturday’s game against Alabama in the first inning. Vitello proceeded to bump the umpire and earn himself a four-game suspension.
This was not the first time Vitello has let his emotions show on the diamond. After the Razorbacks took Game 3, and the series, over Tennessee in Knoxville last season, Vitello had a few choice words with Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn, and the two got into a heated argument.
"It could have been something that was going on during the game,” Van Horn said after the argument. “It could have been about recruiting. It could be about a lot of things. You could probably pick one of (those) or all three. That is between me and Tony.”
The next time the teams met was in the SEC Tournament championship game, which Arkansas won 7-2 for its first tournament title. The Razorbacks fell short of the College World Series in 2021, but the Volunteers earned themselves a bid.
Tennessee lost the two games it played in Omaha, and it has since dropped just three games, posting a 33-3 record so far this season.
With success comes attention — and, in Tennessee’s case, hatred. The Volunteers have quickly become one of the most unliked team in the country, fueled by their style of play and controversy surrounding the use of illegal bats. There has been a healthy back-and-forth between their fanbase and the Hog faithful for most of the season.
Moore’s comments after the LSU game were not the only occasion that someone in the Arkansas program has talked about Tennessee. A lot of people took a preseason comment made by Van Horn as a shot at the Volunteers — although it could have been about multiple teams.
“As far as rah-rah and getting on the other team and acting the way some teams do, hey if that’s what they do, that’s what they do. They run their own program,” Van Horn said back on Feb. 17. “We just play baseball and there’s some teams that it’s a little different.”
The irony of the whole situation is the surplus of connections between the two programs.
Vitello was an assistant under Van Horn at Arkansas from 2014-17. Tennessee assistant coach Josh Elander spent the 2017 season as a volunteer assistant coach with the Hogs and Luke Bonfield, who played for the Razorbacks from 2015-18, serves as the Volunteers’ director of player development.
For now, the teams will not be able to hash things out on the diamond. The soonest that could happen will be in the SEC Tournament in late May. Until then, both squads will be pushing for their respective division titles.
