The Bocker.com

By now I’m sure you’ve all heard about what a snake Bobby Petrino is for leaving the Atlanta Falcons to go back to college and coach at the University of Arkansas. You may have heard about how owner Arthur Blank was asked by Petrino if he could interview with Arkansas, and after his request was denied Petrino went and did it anyway. Or how about how Petrino left one year after signing a 10 year contract with Louisville and one day after looking Blank in the eye and telling him he’d be the Falcons coach next year.

So after all of that put yourselves into the mind of an Arkansas recruit when Petrino comes to your living room. Here’s a guy who has never held a job for more than 2 years before he’s off to greener pastures and he’s telling you that he’ll be around for a while, that he wants to build a winner, that if you come to Arkansas you have his support and bright futures lay ahead. As a parent of one of these athletes do you really want to trust your kids with this guy? I wonder why anyone would come to a school coached by this guy when it’s a given that he’s going to be gone in two years and your program is mired in controversy. Just look at Louisville, Petrino’s job before the Falcons.

Of course Petrino is seen as some sort of offensive genius and he made a BCS bowl game. Walt Harris, formerly of Pittsburgh and Stanford, has also made a BCS bowl game and was considered an offensive genius. You can ask Pittsburgh and Stanford how that turned out. If you want an example of a coach with no character look no further than Dennis Franchione, he ran out of Alabama to coach at Texas A&M and while there was asking boosters to pony up money for a copy of the teams’ injury report, which the NCAA does not allow. You can ask Texas A&M how that turned out.

So my question is this. Why, with all the good coaches, not to mention good role models, in college sports do rats like Franchione and Petrino keep getting hired? Is the pressure too much that these school president’s and Ad’s feel they need a name rather than hiring someone new and perhaps suffering through a few bad seasons before things turn around? At this point, College Football is nothing more than a minor league for the NFL, where kids are pushed in and pushed out, education unecessary, and money is passed between schools and coaches. Amateur sports sure was a nice idea.