Dave Van Horn evaluates the state of Arkansas program, roster entering offseason

Over the weekend, Arkansas lost a tough Super Regional against TCU. With that, head coach Dave Van Horn and the Razorbacks are turning their attention to the offseason and preparing to make a deep run in the 2024 postseason.

As Van Horn explained, Arkansas needs to reload its roster this offseason.

“We’re going to lose some guys,” Dave Van Horn admitted. “There’ll be guys, you know how it is, every year now with the way everything’s set up with the portal and kids coming in. You rebuild your roster every summer.”

This offseason, Arkansas is expecting to lose a lot of players through the MLB Draft. On top of that, the transfer portal has made an impact on college baseball too.

“It’s not going to change. It’s the way it is. You don’t like it, you better find a new job if you’re going to coach at this level. That’s the way I look at it. So, there’s some coaches who don’t like it and they got out,” Van Horn said.

“It’s hard to bring in a freshman and keep him happy if he’s not playing, and you hope they come back, but I’m looking forward to getting this recruiting class in. We have the number one-ranked recruiting class in the country. We’re gonna get smoked in the draft and we know that, but we’re gonna make sure that we have it covered and the guys who get through, I hope those freshmen can help us next year. The guys who come back, you know, they’ve got a lot of experience and we’ve got to the right other guys.”

As Dave Van Horn emphasized, the biggest thing is going to be bringing in players who properly fill the gaps on Arkansas’ roster. If the Razorbacks can do that, they should be in good shape for 2024.

“The grad transfers, the portal guys. We’ve got to get just the right ones. It’s not about getting the superstars all over the country. It’s about getting guys that are good players, that are good teammates.”

Dave Van Horn on how 2023 should be remembered

Given some time to reflect following the loss to TCU, Dave Van Horn opened up about how he thinks the 2023 Razorbacks should be remembered.

“Well you know, I don’t like to use the term overachievers or anything like that, because I think they’re good players. This is a team, and I’ve said it many times, they show up and they think they’re going to win. They showed up and played hard for us all the time. I really can’t remember having to really talk to the team about what we were seeing. It’s not a good effort, you’re not playing with enough heart. Never really saw that from this team. Just find a way to win,” Van Horn said.

“They would find a way to win, and they were fun to be around. Honestly. And I’ll talk to them about that in our meeting when we finish up in a day and a half or so, but I think what they’re going to be remembered for is they won the SEC Championship. They won 43 games. They had like what, one guy on the All-SEC team? It’s very rare. You win the SEC Championship, and you look at Florida, what’d they have, five? Couple of second teamers. I mean, it was something else.”

Ultimately, Dave Van Horn believed that this was a great team that deserves to be celebrated.

“So just a bunch of guys that played as a team, and they won a championship. You know, I hope they get celebrated in ten years. When they come back and you know, I bet they’re all doing something pretty good.”