In-state college teams sure to please fans by playing one another.

Hail Mary, home run, three-pointer!

MAYBE Arkansas should send Dave Van Horn to the majors. Something tells us he’d have an MLB season starting on July 4.

The UofA’s baseball coach and radio interviewee par excellence says the University of Arkansas has scheduled all four in-state Division I schools in 2021. Last week, the Razorbacks added UCA and ASU to the schedule.

They will join UALR and UA-Pine Bluff to go against the Hawgs next year.

This happened only days after Hunter Yurachek said the athletic department would loosen restrictions against playing in-state teams. Hunter Yurachek, it should be noted, is becoming a fan favorite—especially noteworthy in a college athletic director.

Football is still years off, because, well, it’s football. And schedules for football games are fixed years in advance. But Director Yurachek has told other coaches they are free to schedule the other schools in all other sports.

“We competed against [UALR and UAPB in 2019] and the world didn’t come to an end,” the director told our sports section. “It just made sense for us to extend this past the borders of our sister institutions into all the Division I schools in our state.”

Which is what most Arkies have been saying for years, decades even.

This is college sports, so finances drive a lot. Bigger schools sometimes give large checks to smaller schools on the schedule. Why should that money go out of state? Also, it’ll cost less for the smaller colleges to drive to Fayetteville instead of flying to one of the coasts for a game. Also, scheduling in-state games means fewer out-of-state away games for the UofA.

But let’s get real: Money is a secondary concern for fans.

Imagine the fans of the Pack trying to out-howl those calling the Hogs at a basketball game. Imagine a kid at the University of Central Arkansas getting her picture in the paper after spiking a ball over the net at Barnhill.

LSU has been scheduling in-state teams for years, even scheduling away games to those towns. Monroe rocks when a mid-week baseball game features LSU. Last year, LSU went to Louisiana Tech to play basketball. The Tigers even schedule football games against these schools.

Mississippi State does this. The Vols schedule Chattanooga. Florida schedules Florida State. (Snort.)

And when the time comes, football can join the fun in Arkansas.

“We’ve kind of opened the faucet, and I don’t know that we’ll shut off the faucet anytime soon unless there becomes some issues scheduling these institutions, and I don’t foresee what that issue would be,” Hunter Yurachek said. “Everything went very well during the past year in our competitions against UALR and UAPB. This is just an extension of opening up a couple more institutions across the state of Arkansas that we can compete against.”

Just? This has been a long time coming. Fans were way ahead of the university on this one.

Play ball, y’all. As soon as it’s allowed again.