Why Bobby Petrino Firing Validates Dorial Green-Beckham's Signing Day Decision

Arkansas has fired it's head football coach in Bobby Petrino today, in a bit of a shocking move. Petrino was involved in a motorcycle accident on April 1st, which led to an uncovering of a relationship with a former Arkansas female volleyball player that Petrino just recently added to the football staff in a fundraising capacity.

Whether you feel the firing is justified or not, this will affect Razorback football going forward for quite some time. Petrino was the face of the program as the head coach.

I've always and will continue to bang the drum that recruiting is the lifeblood of any college football program and as the recruiting writer here at Bleacher Report I'm going to look at this from a recruiting perspective.

Just this past February, Petrino hauled in a solid recruiting class that according to Scout.com was the 19th best class in the country for 2012 recruiting.

However, Petrino failed to land his most prized prospect in 5-star WR and the No. 1 overall prospect, Dorial Green-Beckham. 

Green-Beckham is a 6'6", 220 pound receiver from Missouri, that ultimately came down to deciding between Missouri and Arkansas. Green-Beckham visited Fayetteville on January 20th of this year and got the royal treatment from Petrino and his staff.

Yet when National Signing Day came, Green-Beckham chose to stay at home and play at Missouri.

What would have happened had Green-Beckham chose Arkansas in February, only to see Petrino get fired tonight? Would he have asked for a release from his scholarship? A transfer? Would he have came to Arkansas anyways?

Many Hog fans disagreed with Green-Bckham's decision to attend Missouri, for obvious reasons. However, Petrino's firing tonight validates Green-Beckham's decision.

For starters, Green-Beckham did not want to leave to the Flatland region, as the schools he seriously considered of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Alabama were not overly far from his Springfield, Missouri hometown.

Even though Fayetteville is a closer drive to Springfield than Columbia is, attending Missouri gives Green-Beckham a chance to to stay in his own state and help build up Tiger football.

Gary Pinkel put in a ton of work to land Green-Beckham and even visited in a helicopter to see the recruit. 

Petrino is also is a bit of a nomad in the coaching world. Remember how he left the Atlanta Falcons in 2008, folks?

So it wasn't a guarantee that Petrino would have been Green-Beckham's coach during the 3-4 year tenure of the receiver's stay in Fayetteville.

Why go to a school were the coach that recruited you could leave at anytime for another job?

Petrino liked his Arkansas gig, and don't get me wrong, I don't like the firing one bit and I think he's one of the best offensive minds in football.

However, looking at his coaching history, Petrino has never stayed on a job for more than four years, with the longest being as Louisville's head coach from 2003-2006.

Even though he didn't leave for another job, tonight's firing shows why Petrino is a coach that never stays on a job for the long haul.

He got fired this time, but Petrino can't be trusted to stay. If I had a son that was being recruited by Petrino, I'd be awfully hesitant to send him to Petrino's program.

The recruits he signed over the past three years will join the other hundreds of players that didn't get the chance for him to coach them for their four years at a school.

Now if Gary Pinkel decides to leave or do something like Petrino did, then this argument for why Dorial Green-Beckham's decision to attend Missouri is validated by Petrino's firing, goes out the window, right?