The Complicated Story of Bobby Petrino's Quest for Redemption
We believe in second chances, and that's what we're seeing with Bobby Petrino, as Louisville goes into The Big Game on Thursday night against Florida State. Petrino…no, wait. That isn't it at all. That's just the rhetoric on Petrino, not the truth.
His story is about learning from mistakes and making changes in life. And going into this Florida State game, Petrino…no, hang on. That isn't quite it, either.
The truth is, there is no nice, simple bow to tie around Petrino's story. Petrino is Petrino, and the reason he is back at Louisville really doesn't have much to do with redemption or remorse. He's there because Louisville wants to be a major, big-time program and not considered a loiterer anymore whenever it gets close. He's there because he can beat Florida State.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
The Seminoles have become the dark force of college football with Jameis Winston's behavior, the school's handling of it and coach Jimbo Fisher's reckless, over-the-top defense of his players over right and wrong. The funny part of it is that at the same time he gets a chance to validate his re-hiring, Petrino also gets to wear the unfamiliar white hat of the good guy.
This is ironic because Petrino, by all accounts, is a hard guy to like.
He cheated on his wife, interviewed for a job at Auburn while his former employer still held it, put his girlfriend on the payroll and left the Atlanta Falcons during his first season without saying goodbye other than to leave a card with a note in the players' lockers. There is also that pesky photo of him with the neck brace and the red marks all over his face after the motorcycle accident he had with his girlfriend, the woman he had put on Arkansas' payroll. And that's just the stuff we know about.
Lucky for Petrino, he's a really, really good football coach.
Despite his well-documented egomania and self-centeredness, he has to change the narrative by winning a football game. If he can deliver a victory over Florida State and can give the nation what it really wants—a chance to push Winston out of the Heisman Trophy picture and to dump the Seminoles from the national championship race—he will leave the field as the "good guy," if just for a night.
Someone once told me about something he called a pain-in-the-butt factor. Basically, as long as the amount you produce is greater than the amount of a pain that you are, things will work out. As soon as success drops below the pain-in-the-butt line, you're gone.
That shows you just how great of a coach Petrino is. Meanwhile, Florida State's defense is young and makes a lot of mistakes. And Petrino might be the top offensive mind in the game.
"These are the games we want to play in and compete in," Petrino told reporters after Monday's practice. "We'd like to be in the top rankings and have the No. 1 team come in here and play us. That's where we're aspiring to go. So we'll look at our program and get one step closer to where we want to get to."
It is a strange thing about sports that we believe a person can prove his moral fiber by winning a game. See: Kobe Bryant.
If Louisville beats Florida State, the narrative will be about how much Petrino has changed, his redemption, if you will.
Some evidence of this already exists. He did set up the Petrino Family Foundation and donated $1 million to a children's hospital. He has been caddying for his daughter, a top golfer at Louisville who competed in the U.S. Amateur. He has shown up at Cardinals basketball games with his family.
He hugs his grandkids as he leaves the practice field and talks about making family his priority. And as a coach, he has vowed several times that now he'll work on developing not only the player but also the person.
If that's real change, then good for him. If it's just public relations, well, that really doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with why he was hired in the first place. Louisville doesn't care.
| 2003 | Louisville | 9-4 | GMAC Bowl-L |
| 2004 | Louisville | 11-1 | Liberty Bowl-W |
| 2005 | Louisville | 9-3 | Gator Bowl-L |
| 2006 | Louisville | 12-1 | Orange Bowl-W |
| 2007 | Atlanta Falcons | 3-10 | |
| 2008 | Arkansas | 5-7 | |
| 2009 | Arkansas | 8-5 | Liberty Bowl-W |
| 2010 | Arkansas | 10-3 | Sugar Bowl-L |
| 2011 | Arkansas | 11-2 | Cotton Bowl-W |
| 2013 | Western Kentucky | 8-4 | |
| 2014 | Louisville | 6-2 |
In August, Sports Illustrated ran a story about whether Petrino had changed and quoted a person, anonymously, who was in the meeting when the athletic board approved hiring Petrino: "There was discussion, but there was nothing about marital infidelity. It was mostly Bobby's flight risk. Is he going to leave again?"
Petrino was the coach at Louisville before and angered the school when he left six months after signing a long-term contract extension, saying that this is where he wanted to be and "I want everyone to really believe it."
Athletic director Tom Jurich believed and thought Petrino would help build the football team into a national program. Thanks in big part to Jurich, Louisville has survived the conference realignments and power-grabs of the big five conferences, getting into the ACC. Charlie Strong was the football coach until this January, when he left for Texas. It had to be a shocked that Strong didn't have more loyalty. He had been passed over for head coaching jobs for years until Jurich gave him the chance.
So when Strong left in January, Louisville's position as a national football program was still a little tenuous. Jurich was not about to take a chance on a first-time head coach going into the conference to play Florida State. And he wasn't going to steal a big-time, successful head coach from another program.
And there was Petrino, already winning at Western Kentucky. Jurich took a chance. But pushing Petrino's change in personality seems like more of a PR move.
Petrino is such a change from Strong, who preached team as family, and doing the right things as good human beings.
So the personality of the program has already changed, from family to business. Louisville is a midsized city without pro major league sports. It follows Cardinals basketball and football in the way big cities follow their pro teams. So you get basketball coach Rick Pitino, a former NBA coach, and Petrino, a former NFL coach.
"College sports are a business, first and foremost," a trustee was quoted as saying in the Sports Illustrated story. "People in the Louisville community look forward to attending games and seeing a strong product on the field. Bobby will produce that.
"This isn't a governor or a mayor we're talking about. This is a football coach."
You can argue if Petrino is a changed person, a better human being. You can wonder if he'll be grateful to Jurich and loyal enough to stay at Louisville. That won't be decided until more established power teams call, and they will. He could very well revert back to old Bobby. But for today, he is the "good guy" in a white hat.
Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report. He also writes for The New York Times and was formerly a scribe for FoxSports.com and the Chicago Sun-Times. Follow him on Twitter @gregcouch.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
