Bobby Petrino is back at the helm for Arkansas football. The football coach has had a lot of success in the college ranks over the years. Perhaps his most famous tenure was with Razorbacks from 2008 to 2011, but that stint ended in disaster and embarrassment.
Petrino has bounced back in a big way since Arkansas fired him over a decade ago, and now he has taken on the mantle as the interim head coach for Arkansas after the firing of Sam Pittman. So, just what happened the last time Petrino coached the Razorbacks?
The scandal that forced Arkansas to fire Bobby Petrino
Petrino has had 23 different coaching stints over his career. He has coached players up as a positions coach, a coordinator, and as the head coach. That extends to numerous different college teams and NFL programs, such as the Jacksonville Jaguars and Atlanta Falcons, the latter of whom he didn't last a full season with as head coach in 2007.
Petrino has found his calling in college football. His aforementioned stint leading the Razorbacks was succeeded by coaching Louisville from 2014 to 2018. Petrino was most recently a head coach for Missouri State from 2020 to 2022, and he was coaching quarterbacks and working as the offensive coordinator for Arkansas this season before his recent promotion.
In college football, coordinators are often underappreciated and go under the radar, so it shocked a lot of fans to see that Petrino had been back on the Arkansas football staff this year. After all, his previous stint with the team ended in infamy. Petrino was originally hired as Arkansas' head coach in 2008. The team struggled in his first season, as they only went 5-7, but he started to introduce the culture, schemes, and players that would take the SEC program to the next level.
Petrino's team would improve each season he was with the program. They went 8-5 in year two, 10-3 in 2010, and his final season with the program resulted in an 11-2 record. That stint included bowl game wins in the Liberty Bowl and Cotton Bowl.
During Petrino's final season with the team, Arkansas only lost to Alabama and LSU, which were the two teams that played in the BCS national championship game. It was just the third 11-win season in Arkansas history, so expectations were sky high for what the Razorbacks would accomplish going forward under the tutelage of Petrino.
On April 1, 2012, Petrino crashed his motorcycle close to Fayetteville and the Arkansas campus. The accident resulted in four broken ribs, a cracked vertebra in his neck, and numerous facial abrasions. After being released from the hospital, Petrino would conduct a press conference in which he detailed his report of the crash. The interview was famous because the neck brace and scuffed-up face that Petrino was rocking, but also because the coach claimed that he didn't have a passenger with him during the accident.
This proved to be a lie. Former Arkansas volleyball player Jessica Dorrell was on the back of Petrino's motorcycle. Petrino hired her as a student-athlete development coordinator just days before the crash. Petrino was married with kids, yet the two had been in a months-long affair. The relationship was not reported to the university, nor was the $20,000 that he gifted the 25-year-old. The way in which Petrino hired Dorrell also broke school affirmative action rules.
On April 6, just before the police report was to be released, Petrino came clean, which resulted in the coach being placed on paid administrative leave. Arkansas would then fire Petrino days later on April 10.
Petrino has shown remorse for his actions in the years since the incident. That was seemingly enough to bring him back in the fold, and now he is back in the top position the university has to offer. The Arkansas football program isn't in a great place right now, though. The Razorbacks are just 2-3, and they've lost each of their last three matchups.
One thing is for sure, though, and that is Petrino knows how to coach college football. Perhaps he will have an Arkansas redemption story this go around.
