Bobby Petrino
Robert Patrick Petrino is an American college football coach who is the offensive coordinator at North Carolina. He served as the head football coach at Missouri State from 2020 to 2022. Petrino previously served as the head coach at the University of Louisville from 2014 until being fired during the 2018 season. He also held the post from 2003 to 2006.
From 2008 to 2011, Petrino was the head coach at the University of Arkansas. He was dismissed from that position in the spring of 2012 for covering up an extramarital affair with an athletic department staffer. Petrino also coached the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League for the first 13 games of the 2007 season. He spent the 2013 season as head football coach at Western Kentucky. He also was the offensive coordinator at Texas A&M in 2023.
Petrino has directed his college teams to nine bowl games, including the first Bowl Championship Series bowl games for both the Louisville Cardinals and the Arkansas Razorbacks in their programs' histories. His teams have achieved four 10-win seasons and six AP Top 25 finishes.
Early years
Born in Lewistown, Montana, Robert Patrick Petrino grew up in Helena and graduated from Capital High in 1979. He attended hometown Carroll College and graduated with a physical education and a math minor in 1983. While at Carroll, he played quarterback for the Fighting Saints and began his coaching career there as a graduate assistant during the 1983 season. At the time, his father Bob Petrino Sr. was the head coach of Carroll, a position he held from 1971 to 1999.Assistant coaching career
Carroll and Weber State
After a year at Carroll, he moved to Weber State College in the Big Sky Conference, coaching quarterbacks as a graduate assistant under head coach Mike Price. Petrino returned to his alma mater in 1985 as offensive coordinator. In each of his two seasons in that position, Carroll had the top-rated offense in NAIA football. He then returned to Weber State for two seasons in 1987 and 1988 as the receivers coach under Price.Idaho and Arizona State
Petrino spent a year as quarterbacks coach at the University of Idaho in 1989 under new head coach John L. Smith, then was promoted to offensive coordinator the next season. In 1992, he moved up to Division I-A as the quarterbacks coach at Arizona State University in the Pac-10 Conference. During his two seasons at ASU under head coach Bruce Snyder, he oversaw the development of future All-American QB Jake Plummer, who went on to play ten seasons in the NFL.Nevada and Utah State
In 1994, he moved to the University of Nevada, serving as both offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach under Chris Ault. During his one season there, the Wolf Pack were second in the nation in both passing offense and total offense, and third in scoring offense. The next year, he began a three-year stint as offensive coordinator at Utah State University, reuniting with Smith.Louisville
When Smith moved to Louisville in 1998, Petrino followed him there as offensive coordinator. In his one season there, the Cardinals were top-ranked in Division I-A in scoring and total offense and posted the biggest positive turnaround among I-A football teams, winning six more games than in the 1997 season. Petrino left the collegiate ranks to coach in the NFL for three years.NFL
Petrino's first stint in the NFL was with the Jacksonville Jaguars from 1999 to 2001, where he spent two seasons as the quarterbacks coach and a third as offensive coordinator.Auburn
In 2002, Petrino returned to the college ranks, replacing Noel Mazzone as offensive coordinator under Tommy Tuberville at Auburn, whose offense significantly improved that season under Petrino's watch.Head coaching career
Louisville
Petrino returned to Louisville in 2003 as head coach, replacing John L. Smith, who had departed for Michigan State. After only one season at Louisville, Petrino secretly interviewed for the coaching job at Auburn, as the Tigers were considering whether to retain his former boss, Tuberville.In four years at Louisville, Petrino built the Cardinals into a national power. He led them to 11 wins in 2004 and 12 wins in 2006—only the second and third times that the Cardinals won as many as 11 games in a season, and to date their only appearances in the final top 10 of a major media poll. They spent much of 2006 as contenders for the national championship, rising as high as third in the nation before suffering their only loss of the season, against Rutgers. The 2006 team was invited to the Orange Bowl, only the second major-bowl appearance in school history.
On July 13, 2006, Petrino signed a 10-year, $25.6 million contract to stay on as head football coach. The deal gave Petrino a raise from $1 million to $1.6 million annually, and he would have been paid $2.6 million in the final year of the deal. The contract included a buyout clause of $1 million.
On January 7, 2007, less than six months after signing the 10-year contract above, it was announced Petrino had accepted the head coaching position for the NFL's Atlanta Falcons.
Atlanta Falcons
The Atlanta Falcons hired Petrino to a five-year, $24 million contract.A major reason Petrino was brought in was to develop star quarterback Michael Vick into a more complete quarterback, Vick being known more for his ability to run than as a pocket passer. However, before Petrino's first training camp, it emerged that Vick had bankrolled an illegal dog fighting operation near his hometown in Newport News, Virginia. The terms of Vick's bail barred him from leaving Virginia before the November 26 trial, ending any realistic chance of him playing a meaningful down in 2007.
In a case of exceptionally bad timing, the Falcons had traded Vick's backup, Matt Schaub, to the Houston Texans in the offseason. Thus, Petrino was forced to begin the season with back-ups Joey Harrington, Byron Leftwich, and Chris Redman as his quarterbacks.
With their franchise quarterback effectively sidelined for the season, the Falcons appeared to be a rudderless team. On December 10, 2007, with the Falcons at the bottom of the NFC South with a 3–10 record after suffering a home loss to the division rival New Orleans Saints, Petrino resigned to become head coach at Arkansas, less than 24 hours after personally promising owner Arthur Blank that he was staying in Atlanta. Petrino informed his players of his departure via a four-sentence laminated note left at the locker of each player, a move that many in the organization and in the NFL harshly criticized. Even before resigning, Petrino had rankled the Falcons players with his aloof manner. He was known to walk through the locker room without speaking to the players. He was also reluctant to share personnel decisions with the players; Harrington learned through the media that Petrino considered Leftwich the starter even though Harrington had engineered two straight wins in Leftwich's absence.
According to a 2022 article in The Athletic about Petrino's tenure at Arkansas, Petrino told Jeff Long, who was due to formally succeed Frank Broyles as athletic director at Arkansas after the 2007 season, that he was interested in coming to Fayetteville. Long was not willing to wait until after the end of the NFL season, and asked Dallas Cowboys owner and Arkansas alumnus Jerry Jones to ask Blank for permission to negotiate with Petrino. When Blank turned the request down, Petrino's agent suggested that Long would be free to talk to Petrino if Petrino resigned from the Falcons during the season. Long met Petrino at a law office in Atlanta, and Petrino stepped away long enough to formally resign as Falcons head coach.
Petrino's thirteen game tenure is tied with Lou Holtz in 1976 and Urban Meyer in 2021 for the third shortest non-interim coaching tenure in NFL history. His tenure as the Falcons' head coach is widely considered to have been among the worst head coaching tenures in league history.
Arkansas
Once Petrino resigned from the Falcons, he and Long negotiated a contract calling for Petrino to be paid $2.85 million per year for five years; it was later extended to seven years before Petrino formally signed.The Razorbacks ended the 2008 season with a record of 5–7 ; The two conference wins were over Auburn, and a last second win against LSU in the annual Battle for the Golden Boot.
Under Petrino, the Razorbacks showed significant improvement in the 2009 season with analysts from both ESPN and CBS regularly citing starting quarterback Ryan Mallett as one of the most impressive collegiate quarterbacks in the country. The Razorbacks came close to upsetting the No. 1-ranked Florida Gators on October 17, 2009. That game culminated in a controversial fourth quarter personal foul call on an Arkansas lineman. The resulting 15-yard penalty allowed the Gators to continue what turned out to be their game-winning drive. The SEC ultimately issued an apology for the call and suspended the officiating crew. Arkansas would go on to finish the season 8–5 after beating the Conference-USA champion East Carolina Pirates in the 2010 Liberty Bowl, 20–17 in OT.
The Razorbacks also enjoyed success under Petrino in the 2010 season, finishing 10–2 and notching their first major bowl appearance in two decades, against Ohio State. In the 2011 Sugar Bowl, Ohio State built an early lead behind the play of Terrelle Pryor and Daniel Herron, but Arkansas came back in the second half. As the Razorbacks were driving for a go-ahead score in the final minutes, Ryan Mallett threw an interception near the Ohio State 20-yard line, and Ohio State ran out the clock. On July 8, 2011, under scrutiny from the NCAA due to a variety of program irregularities and violations of Ohio State University and NCAA policies, Ohio State vacated the 2011 Sugar Bowl win along with 11 other victories in their 2010 season. Arkansas was still forced to count the game as a loss, finishing 10–3.
The Razorbacks won the 2012 Cotton Bowl Classic in Dallas, defeating Kansas State by a score of 29–16. The Hogs concluded the 2011 season with an 11–2 record, with their only losses at Alabama and at LSU, both of whom played in the BCS national championship game. It was just the third 11-win season in Arkansas' 119-year football history, and their first since 1977. The Razorbacks also finished ranked #5 in both major polls, their first top-ten finish in 30 years.