Until somebody hires Junior, the Petrino story is the most enjoyable thing to follow in the world of college football right now. A few tidbits that caught my eye yesterday:
- Garrick McGee, who was Petrino’s offensive coordinator at Arkansas, is a real chip off the block. He quit as head coach at UAB to rejoin Petrino as Louisville’s offensive coordinator. The kicker is that he did it without telling his players. Talk about learning from the master! I wonder if he left them a note in their lockers.
- McGee isn’t the only coach from the state of Alabama joining Petrino’s staff. Kevin Steele is leaving Nick Saban to become Louisville’s new defensive coordinator. Between Steele and Clint Hurtt, who’s laboring under a two-year NCAA show cause penalty, Petrino’s got some real recruiting firepower. Which, given the circumstances, can’t hurt.
- The funniest thing I saw were a number of tweets lamely defending Louisville’s AD, Tom Jurich, as a smart man. Paying Petrino, damaged goods, $3.5 million per year doesn’t strike me as particularly sharp. This, however, does:
You know who the smartest person is in all of this? Western Kentucky athletic director Todd Stewart. When he hired Petrino last year, he had no illusions. He knew who Petrino was, and knew he was only going to use the Hilltoppers job to rebuild his resume so he could get a better one. So he built into the contract a buyout clause: $850,000 a year for four years, with a $1.2 million buyout. If someone wanted Petrino bad enough, they’d pay the buyout. Petrino’s restless feet didn’t even keep him in Bowling Green for one year, which means that not only did Stewart get an eight-win season out of Petrino, but Western Kentucky will actually make a profit off Petrino’s salary alone. Petrino was their coach for one season, and WKU was paid $350,000 for the privilege. Now that’s understanding what you’re in for when you hop in the boat with the snake.
On top of that, I believe Louisville is obligated to play a home and home with WKU as a result of hiring Petrino. Nicely played, Mr. Stewart.
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UPDATE: Steele changes his mind.
I bet Bobby Petrino hates when that happens.
Get The Picture 
I would think being the head coach of UAB would trump being the OC at UL. Maybe he got an unbelievable bonus for having a hot wife.
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Apparently the politics behind the UAB position are awful. Remember, they almost had Jimbo Fisher a few years back but it was nixed by the regents, mainly because they didn’t want Jimbo affecting the recruiting of Bama. So that’s when they hired Callaway from us.
Even when compared to their peers, apparently the facilities, support, etc are substandard there. And it wouldn’t shock me if his OC salary matches or exceeds what he was making at UAB. At worst, it will be a minimal paycut.
All that being said though, I do hate it when coaches don’t even meet with the players on the way out of town.
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At UAB, failure is a feature not a bug
https://mobile.twitter.com/SBN_BillC/status/421337282734342145
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This new ACC member is sure delivering some blows to the “genteel” ACC’s reputation as too dignified to get in the gutter. Of course, North Carolina already had done so to those paying any kind of attention.
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Clemson invented the gutter.
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Your reply surprised me. The memory of Danny Ford has probably stunted the UGA old farts’s graciousness towards our eastern neighbor. He and Meier are in the same class and with both having at least one foot there.
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I love that WKU AD…that is awesome.
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Stewart is another steely-eyed accountant in the sports biz.
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Is that an insult or a compliment?
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Yes. 🙂
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Petrino will “try his best and search for every opportunity” to get WKU into the schedule ASAP. He may not be able to produce until next year. Either way, it should be fun to catch the conversations going back and forth until that happens and determine if there is another penalty payout if it doesn’t. I just don’t see the WKU AD taking Bobby’s word for how hard he will try.
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Wonder what the odds are that by the time Louisville fits Western Kentucky on to their schedule, Petrino has already bolted to his next job?
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At this point, if any other team gets screwed over by Petrino, I will lay more blame on that team than Petrino. You know what you’re getting into, might as well protect yourself. Fool me once…etc.
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“WKU was paid $350,000 for the privilege,” McGarity is jealous. McG is now looking into charging GAs tuition fees for learning how to coach.
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Great Coach. Slimeball Weasel as a human being.
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He’s a great coach…as long as you overlook the fact that he’s never finished what he’s started at any job ever.
Let’s hold off calling him a great coach until he actually wins something more than a fake Big East, ok? I’ve never in my life seen anyone get more millage out of back to back 3rd place finishes in your division.
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Texas A&M?
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I tend to think you can’t be both. Not at the collegiate level and down, anyway.
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“Great Coach. Slimeball Weasel as a human being.” Spike, you might add, “not much of a motorcycle driver either”.
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Can we hire the WKU guy as AD? Seems like an actual business man who understands leverage.
The guy at Louisville is an idiot and got totally pantsed. I would have given Petrino a similar contract to the WKU one, not a $3.5M, 7 year (!!!!) deal. Petrino is still damaged and would have taken whatever he was given to get back into major conference coaching.
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Jurich owes it all to Mike Slive
“The biggest break this university got was Mike Slive not kicking it out of C-USA,” Jurich said.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/22000947/whats-behind-louisvilles-success-the-countrys-best-ad-tom-jurich
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Yeah, Jurich must be real proud. Petrino attended the UL/Memphis basketball game last night but stayed in Jurich’s box and was not introduced to the crowd for fear he would be booed.
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And per his custom, I’m sure he left early.
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Leave Bobby alone!
“He pauses a bit, and tears come to his eyes. Later, when asked about Petrino getting emotional, Jurich said, “I didn’t know he had emotions.” But there they were. Tears. He just wanted to be close to Louisville. When his dad said he wanted the Kentucky job last year, that was even closer to Louisville. It all makes sense now. Did you know the tears of a football coach are said to have healing powers? They can’t heal disease, but are said to heal certain forms of skepticism….Upstairs, Jurich issued a warning. He said he asked the coach, “Do you have enough courage to look me in the eye and tell me you’ve changed? Because if you lie to me, I’ll kill you.”
http://www.wdrb.com/story/24415040/crawford-life-death-and-the-louisville-return-of-petrino
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Indeed.
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“UPDATE: Steele changes his mind.”
Maybe it was because Kevin (looking exactly like what a crazed son of Joe Torre would look like with an oddly contemplative Dabo looking on in the photo accompanying the linked article) could get no assurances that Jurich would not schedule a game with Dana Holgorsen in the future so Kevin decided to stay in the frying pan,
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A man with Tom Jurich’s ability to say one thing and mean another, his willingness to risk other people’s money, and his apparent affinity for hanging out with character-deficient people should nicely qualify him for the U.S. Senate. And if that happened, would Bobby then want the AD title added? Sure, unless the UF (or some such) job comes open next year.
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INSTANT CLASSIC … ESPN.com has since retracted its initial report, which had Steele joining former UAB coach Garrick McGee on Petrino’s staff. BamaOnline.com first reported the news of Steele’s decision to remain at Alabama. I’ll bet the Disney folks are pissed.
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