‘Tony V will take over after Dave Van Horn decides to retire’ – Arkansas insiders are convinced of what’s next for Tony Vitello
Former Tennessee Volunteers baseball coach Tony Vitello is in his first season as the manager of the San Francisco Giants, but it’s been a tough season so far for the former UT skipper.
Where will former Tennessee Vols coach Tony Vitello be in a couple of years?
It’s a question that no one can accurately answer right now, but it’s an intriguing question that lots of folks are asking.
Vitello, who won a national championship at Tennessee in 2024, is in his first season as the manager of the San Francisco Giants. And it hasn’t gone well so far. The Giants have one of the worst records in MLB, and there’s growing frustration from the fan base.
There was always going to be a learning curve for Vitello, who had no MLB or minor league experience before landing the job, but big league teams are not in the business of letting managers learn on the job. If the results aren’t there after a couple of seasons, teams will turn to another voice.
To make matters worse for Vitello, there’s already speculation that the Buster Posey experiment isn’t going to work out in San Francisco.
Posey, the Giants’ President of Baseball Operations, is the man who made the call to hire Vitello. If he gets canned, it’s highly likely that Vitello will get the boot, too.
And if/when Vitello gets canned, it feels inevitable that he’ll return to college baseball.
Arkansas reporters think Tony Vitello is next in line in Fayetteville
WKRG reporter Courtney Mims called her shot this week while discussing the future of Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn.
Van Horn will turn 66 in September — the end is undoubtedly near for the longtime Arkansas coach.
And Mims believes that when Van Horn finally decides to retire, it’ll be Vitello, a former Razorbacks assistant coach, who takes over in Fayetteville.
“Clip it right now,” said Mims. “I’m looking into the camera. Tony V will take over after Dave Van Horn decides to retire. I can’t tell you when Dave will decide to retire — that’s up to him — but Tony V is going to be next in line. Book it right now. Prediction.”
“I think this time next year, Dave Van Horn is holding up a national championship and Tony Vitello the very next week is named the head coach at Arkansas,” added Southeast Sports+ host Gerhard Mathangani. “I can see it.”
Vols fans would hate to see Vitello in the Arkansas dugout, but this is a real scenario that could be in play. It makes sense. Vitello loved his time in Fayetteville — his emotional words about Arkansas last year went viral — and he’s still close with Van Horn.
Vitello, in fact, leaned on Van Horn when making the decision to leave Tennessee for San Francisco.
“With Tony, he just called and said, ‘What do you think? Do you think I’m crazy?’” said Van Horn in February. “And I had a lot to say. But I said, ‘Bottom line, what do you want to do?’ I don’t think he was super happy with what was going on over there. I think it was more not about the University of Tennessee — it’s a great university. It was more about dealing with agents and dealing with all of that, trying to win, put a team on the field, and the stuff that we deal with. And I just said, ‘Hey, you’re 45 years old,’ or whatever he is (Vitello is 47). ‘If you want to take a shot at pro ball, here’s your shot. If it doesn’t work, you can always come back.’
We’ll see what happens with Vitello — no one has a crystal ball, and no one knows exactly what the future holds for the former Tennessee coach.
But there’s no doubt that a realistic path to being the head coach at Arkansas exists for Vitello.