LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- This was going to be an easy one. A softball down the middle to begin the week. Bobby Petrino returns to Power 4 football in a head coaching capacity. You could see him coming at Arkansas a mile away — interim tag or not.
When Arkansas fired Sam Pittman over the weekend, it was like sportswriter Christmas. This column would practically write itself.
Some of my best work, you'll excuse the trip down memory lane, has been torching Petrino. You know the stories. The fits he put Louisville through during his first stretch here before leaving for the Atlanta Falcons. His quick departure from Atlanta to go to Arkansas. The note left in the locker room. The scandal that chased him from Fayetteville.
As soon as WKU hired him as coach after that, you could see him coming. You knew he'd be back here. I lobbied against it in print.
"Meet the new coach, same as the old coach," I wrote about Bobby 2.0.
Of course, that's exactly what Louisville was hoping for. And, in the Lamar Jackson ride, it got it to a degree. Before it didn't.
He pulled a George Constanza in getting himself fired (and bought out to the tune of $14 million) at Louisville, and when Missouri State hired him a few years later, I let them have it.
But a funny thing happened when I sat down at the keyboard to write this. I didn't have it. I reached for the bile and couldn't find it. What's going on here?
Has the world changed so much that Bobby Petrino ascending to the head coaching job of a program he ran off the road not a big deal? Possible. Bobby isn't even a blip on the radar of crazy and even tragic stuff happening. Have time and distance softened my views? Likely.
Have I mellowed or lost my edge? Entirely possible. Mike Bianchi was a great sports columnist in Orlando who described the job this way: "You watch the battle from afar, and when it's over, you ride down to the battlefield to bayonet the victims."
Is my bayonet lost in the garage with a bunch of other junk?
I don't think so. But I do think this. I've not found a ton of redeemable qualities in Bobby Petrino. But there is at least one — perseverance.
And if you're a person who has messed up (and we're all people who have messed up, though not to his degree, perhaps), or failed or just simply inflicted so many scars on yourself that they're impossible to cover, Petrino has to offer you some hope.
It's the nature of college football — if not life — that if you can win a few games and draw up a few plays, you're always going to get another chance. I wish everybody got so many, but that's not always the case. What is the case that we can always pick ourselves up and keep trying. (Especially if someone paid us $14 million somewhere along the line.)
I find it interesting that my career has brought me into the path of these coaches — Pearl, Pitino, Petrino — who had these Shakespearian stories.
Will this act turn out any better for Petrino? I wouldn't bet on it.
But I'm also not rooting against it — for the sakes of his players and family and even him.
I would hope that time and experience have done some work on him.
They sure seem to have done a number on me.
Quick sips
• Josh Heird has talked to the NCAA in an initial approach to get Louisville's vacated 2013 NCAA men's basketball championship back. If you missed that story, you can see it here.
• Heird and Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart said they will continue to schedule the Governor's Cup football series between the schools. That's good news. Read about it here.
• After a blowout loss to South Carolina, it's tough to see how this ends well for Mark Stoops and Kentucky. But it's also difficult to see how either one moves on. Read about it here.
The Last Drop
"We will begin a national search for our next head coach immediately and that search will include Coach Petrino, who has expressed his desire to be a candidate for the full-time job."
Arkansas athletic director Hunter YurachekÂ
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