AJC > Sports > Blog > Archives > 2007 > December > 12
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
On a plane to Arkansas
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Getting ready to get on a plane to Fayetteville, Ark. I don’t know how many answers I’m going to get when I land in Wal-Mart Country, but I sure have a lot of questions for the folks at the University of Arkansas. Such as:
1. Do you people have any idea what you’ve done? Bobby Petrino is one of those guys who looks good on paper, but as a human being he has absolutely no communication or people skills. Other than his wins at Louisville, what about this man appealed to you to hire him as a representative of your university?
2. Have you forgotten November, 2003? That is when Petrino sat in a plane in an airport near Louisville and basically tried to put himself in position to take Tommy Tuberville’s job. Petrino had worked for the guy at Auburn just the year before. Why would you hire someone who would stab somebody in the back like that?
3. He lied to Arthur Blank. Don’t you think he’ll lie to you? On Monday, Petrino assured the Falcons owner that he had worked through his problems and would be back next season. On Tuesday he phoned Blank to let him know that he was quitting. If Petrino will lie to a man like Blank, he’ll certainly lie to the athletics director and chancellor of the University of Arkansas.
4. Are you THAT desperate to win? I know that you wanted to hire a sitting head coach and that Tommy Tuberville, Tommy Bowden, Jim Grobe, and Butch Davis all decided to stay put. I know that you had told some coordinators that if this deal didn’t get done, you were ready to go the route of hiring a top assistant. But there are a lot of good coaches out there with a lot less baggage than this guy.
5. Do you realize what a PR hit this university is going to take? Arkansas will survive, of course. But for the next few weeks this school is going to be the poster-child of what’s wrong with college athletics because of this hire. After all of the controversy surrounding Houston Nutt, which led to his bolting to Ole Miss, are you sure THIS is the direction you want to go? Do you think for a minute that Darren McFadden or Felix Jones will want to play for this guy? They already had one foot out the door. Now they will go running to the NFL.
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