Editor's note: At a time when sports are shut down, we take a look (in no particular order) at some of the bizarre moments from Georgia sports history.
It was a season for the ages.
The Falcons’ 2007 season was the low point for the franchise during owner Arthur Blank’s tenure.
Things got so bad that the head coach walked out the door with three games remaning in the season.
“Listen, I haven’t heard from Bobby since then,” retired Falcons wide receiver Roddy White said this week. “I have yet to hear one thing from Bobby since he left up out of the facility.”
Petrino bolted during the early evening Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007, the player’s off day.
The Falcons had just been pummeled 34-14 by the Saints on Monday Night Football. Earlier that Monday, quarterback Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in federal prison in Richmond in a dogfighting case.
More would go wrong the next day.
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Petrino told Blank – twice – that he planned to stay. Instead he escaped. He left the team, coaching staff and city in the lurch. He was next seen on television as Arkansas' new head coach in a late-night news conference in Fayetteville, Ark., later that Tuesday night. He even did the school's "Woo Pig Sooey" chant – complete with cheerleaders – after his opening remarks.
Petrino said he stayed up all night Monday after the Falcons’ loss talking with his wife. “I knew I wanted to come back to coach college,” Petrino said at the time. “It wasn't a change in mind; it was a matter of working out details.”
Blank signed Petrino to a five-year, $24.5 million contract Jan. 8 that year after dumping Jim Mora.
Petrino left the players a typewritten “Dear John” letter announcing his departure. Safety Lawyer Milloy wrote “Coward” over his name with a red marker. The players were irate.
Tight end Alge Crumpler blasted Petrino. Even the mild-mannered Warrick Dunn laid into the departed coach. Defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer called Petrino a coward for the leaving the coaches and their families in limbo.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Falcons beat writer Steve Wyche confirmed with a team official, who declined to be quoted by name, that Petrino was in fact quitting his job with the Falcons to accept the job at the University of Arkansas.
In later years, it was reported that Blank and Dallas owner Jerry Jones had a frosty relationship. It may have started with Petrino’s departure. Jones, who played at Arkansas, had a hand in luring Petrino away.
In 25 seasons as an NFL player, Falcons kicker Morten Andersen thought he had seen just about everything.
Credit: Curtis Compton
Credit: Curtis Compton
“The amount of things, the misfortune that has happened to us and affected the football team and organization, has been unprecedented," Andersen said after Petrino left.
The players went into survival mode.
“It's too much for the players to worry about,” Dunn said back then. “Just try to play good football and go out and not get embarrassed.”
Morale in the organization was at a new low in a season rife with scandal.
“Everybody is questioning everything,” Dunn said. “There's a lot of uncertainty from top to bottom. It’s not just the players; it’s management, too.”
Dunn would later become a part-owner of the franchise.
“I can’t think of another sports franchise that has gone through what we’ve gone through this year,” Andersen said. “Losing our franchise quarterback. Then having the issues with the head coach. Other personnel issues along the way ... it's been very challenging, for sure.”
Defensive backs coach Emmitt Thomas was named the interim coach for the final three games (two of them Falcons losses) as the Falcons finished 4-12.
“We're going to make the best out of it,” Thomas said.
Even the opponents felt sorry for the Falcons.
“My hat goes off to those guys,” Tampa Bay wide receiver Mike Clayton said. “They've had to endure a lot of stuff, and players should not be put in that position.”
The only good thing to come out of the 2007 debacle was the development of White, who was coached by wide receivers coach Paul Petrino, Bobby’s brother.
“My very first two years playing for the Falcons was a lot of pressure,” White said. “Going into that year, it was just a different feel. When I sat down and talked to Bobby and Paul, they wanted me to be the man. They wanted me to be the guy. So, I already knew going into the season, they wanted me to be the guy.”
Petrino planned to center the offense around White and Vick.
“It was a lot of things they asked of me,” White said. “They wanted me to lose weight. They wanted me to come in in better shape. I worked extremely hard that offseason. I think I weighed in at 205. Prior to that, I was like 215. So, I had lost 10 pounds going into that year. I was just much more quicker, faster and explosive.”
White, who was a first-round pick in 2005 out of Alabama-Birmingham, had talent. Paul Petrino pulled it out of him.
“I had fun,” White said. “Being with Coach P was fun. Bobby was cool, too, through all that mess and all that nonsense. Having to deal with the Mike Vick incident and going through that offseason, it was kind of crazy, but at the same time I felt like even though we didn’t know what Mike was going to do, I felt like offensively we were going to be pretty good because of the play-calling and the way we were going to practice and stuff like that.”
There have long been whispers around Flowery Branch that Vick looked spectacular in secret workouts that were allegedly voluntary at the time. White confirmed those reports.
“Absolutely, when we were going through meetings and stuff like that, Mike was picking up the offense so fast,” White said. “In that offense, you had so many different checks, out of two-by-two and three-by-one sets, that we could check to that were colors that were actually plays.”
Vick was looking forward to playing for Petrino.
“Mike was like really grasping that joint and just checking down,” White said. “We would just go, two-minute drills and stuff like that, blue, green, black, different colors for different plays and he was looking really, really good.
“Everything was looking smooth. The ball was coming out of his hand quickly.”
But with the federal dogfighting case hanging over his head, the public and the media never got to see Vick in Petrino’s offense.
“He was getting the ball out quickly,” White said. “We had better quick-game stuff than we did from the old regime and a lot more play-action pass. A lot more max protection. Our offense was looking really, really good man up until that point.”
It was difficult on Petrino and the team once Vick’s case went sideways.
“It was tough for us,” White said. “We always thought he was coming back. We thought this thing was going to blow over and by (exhibition) season that he would be back. That’s how we kind of took it.”
Once it became clear that Vick was in deep trouble, it was too late.
“The biggest blow was when we knew he wasn’t coming back, we didn’t know how we were going to look offensively,” White said. “We had literally over OTAs and everything, put in everything as if Mike was the quarterback. All of the play calls and stuff like that.
“We had to go back and change a lot of that stuff when we started with Joey (Harrington) and Chris Redman and them competing for the spot because they were different kind of guys. We literally had to go back and revamp the whole system. It was a big change.”
White had 63 catches going into that Monday night game. He would finish with 83 catches for 1,202 yards and six touchdowns in his breakthrough season.
“The craziest part about that is that when he left, it was in the middle of the night,” White said. “When I woke up, I had five missed calls early in the morning from Paul. I got up and answered the phone and he was like, ‘Hey Roddy, Bobby quit.’ And I was like, ‘Man, what are you talking about?’ He said, ‘Yeah, man. He just quit.’ ”
White wanted to know if Paul Petrino was staying. Paul Petrino said he wanted to stay, but went with his brother to Arkansas. He did stay in touch with White for the rest of the season.
He called every week to make sure White had the game plan down and was ready to play.
“I appreciated and loved Paul for that,” White said. “Even to this day we still stay in contact with each other. I appreciate him for even reaching out to me the rest of that season and for being a real man and being in the meeting. He didn’t have to do that.”
As far as Bobby Petrino, White isn’t exactly waiting for a call.
Petrino’s bumpy football ride is not over. He was named the head coach at Division II Missouri State in January. During stops at Arkansas, Western Kentucky and Louisville, Petrino has posted a 119-56 record over 14 seasons.
After leaving the Falcons, Petrino had the Razorbacks rolling until he was injured in a motorcycle accident that revealed an extramarital affair with an athletic department employee. Petrino originally said he was alone, but it was later discovered that he had a female passenger and they were involved in a relationship.
After he was fired by Arkansas, he was off a year before resurfacing at Western Kentucky.
He went back to Louisville in 2014 for a second stint.
He was fired a year after quarterback Lamar Jackson, running some of the plays that were designed for Vick, won the 2016 Heisman Trophy. In addition to becoming the school's first Heisman winner, Jackson and Petrino had the program as high as No. 3 in The Associated Press Top 25 poll and within reach of the college football playoffs.
A freefall the following season led to his dismissal.
Petrino did not return an email or phone call to his Missouri State office for this article.
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