It's Been a Month - Sorry

It’s been awhile since anything of merit has caused me such distress that I felt the need to comment on it. Since my last post, college football has completely blown up in our faces. At this point, picking Bowl Games would be an absolute sham, because based on the way this season has gone, there is no way to possibly accurately guess who might win. That being said, I fully intend on getting those picks posted online this week.

What I would prefer to discuss revolves around the University of Arkansas football program. Specifically, the hiring of new head coach Bobby Petrino. My allegiances to Texas aside, the Razorbacks have made a huge mistake. Let’s forget his miserable 3-10 record with the Atlanta Falcons this year, and dive into the character of Bobby Petrino the man, and what he is committed to.

Follow this career path for the new coach in Fayetteville. In July of 2006, Petrino, a hot commodity following 4 successful years at Louisville, signed a 10 year 25.5 million contract extension to stay with the Cardinals through 2016. Fast forward a grand total of 6 months, about 5% of his promised tenure, and Petrino bolted Louisville to return to the NFL and the Atlanta Falcons. Between December 2006 and December 2007, and 13 NFL games, Petrino decided that the NFL wasn’t for him, and just yesterday he left his 5 year dear with the Falcons on the table and bolted for Arkansas.

Question - Is the man the Razorback nation thinks will lead them to the top of the SEC? This guy commits to coaching stints about as well as Rosie O’Donnell commits to her diet. Honestly, are there people in Arkansas not worried that Petrino may take the vacant Michigan job next week?

At some point in the near future, collegiate athletic directors and the NCAA should find a way to make these carousel coaching changes stop. How this can be done, I am not sure. It seems odd to me that universities who are left high and dry by coaching changes don’t exert some influence with university attorneys to force a coach’s hand. In some way, I wish they would force coaches to pay the length of their contract should they decide to leave early. The hypocritical part that gets me going is the way the schools and the NCAA treat student athletes in comparison - if a freshman at Texas A&M decides sheep humping isn’t for him, a transfer to UT or OU would require a mandatory 1 year red shirt year and a loss of a season of eligibility. Perhaps a similar rule for coaches should go into effect.

Now I am no sympathizer for the National Football League in any way. Yet you can’t help but feel for the Atlanta Falcons in this situation. Owner Arthur Blake must be sipping on the Jack Daniels, wondering what he did so wrong in the last year to impose this evil Santa Christmas. First, his expunged star QB, the former face of the franchise whom he poured millions of dollars into, is sentenced to jail for 23 months. Follow that up with his current crop of players flashing “Free Vick” t-shirts and posters supporting the dog beater on a nationally televised game, making sane folks like me wonder what is wrong with those players. Oh, and don’t forget about the 10,000 fans who bothered to show up for the football game, many of whom were sporting Vick’s #7 jersey in support of their fallen hero. (On a side note, if a white guy came to a baseball game wearing a wearing a Mark McGuire jersey, he’d be crucified for supporting the steroid pumping embarrassment of MLB. A black man sports a Vick replica, and he’s recognized as staying loyal. You figure it out.) Follow this up with the Falcons head coach quitting on the team the next day, and you can understand the feeling of despair coming out of the ATL.

Hopefully, NFL owners have figured it out in the wake of Petrino-flight and Saban-bolt. DO NOT HIRE COLLEGE COACHES FOR PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL. The Dallas Cowboys hired Jimmy Johnson from the University of Miami in the early ‘90s, and now every owner thinks they can pull the hot name from the college ranks and make the Super Bowl. Keep in mind, the Cowboys’ great coach Johnson was aided in his success by a trio of Hall of Famers in Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin. In the wake of Johnson’s departure from Dallas, the Cowboys won 3 more division titles, reached 2 NFC Championship games, and won the Super Bowl. Perhaps it wasn’t the innovative musings of the collegiate trained Johnson that brought the early ‘90s dynasty to Big D.

The point is, NFL owners should recognize collegiate coaches as egotistical maniacs, who want their program to be all about them, their rules, their schemes, their players, their curfews, their feuds, their graduation rates, their offenses, their defenses, their mandatory team volunteer activities, their pep rallies, their wind sprints, their spring practices. Collegiate coaches cannot take those dictator attitudes into today’s modern game - when they do, they feel lost, can’t win, and bolt home. It’s a pretty common occurrence these days. Perhaps the NFL can figure it out…

Here’s hoping Petrino gets what he deserves in Arkansas - a 3-9 season next year.