Bobby Petrino’s redemption: Arkansas coach’s road from infamy to interim

The beauty of second chances is that they free you from living in the past.

For Bobby Petrino, 13 years was plenty of time to contemplate what could have been at Arkansas. He knows he will forever be tied to the infamous motorcycle accident and affair with a subordinate that led to his firing in the spring of 2012, just months after the program’s most successful back-to-back seasons since the Hogs won 22 straight games and a national title between 1964 and 1965.

But now he has a second chance.

On Saturday, he steps back on the sideline as Arkansas’ interim head coach, bumped up from offensive coordinator in the wake of coach Sam Pittman’s firing two weeks ago. In a rare opportunity that can only happen in sports or a Hollywood script, the 64-year-old coach has the chance to prove himself again.

“It’s something that’s bothered me for a long, long time. We had it cranked up and rolling, and I made a series of bad decisions and blew it,” Petrino told CBS Sports this week. “And I’m just a very blessed person to have my family stick with me, have my wife stick with me, have coach Pitt(man) give me a second chance to come back here and contribute at a place that I love.”

Petrino has at least eight weeks to prove himself ready to lead the Razorbacks into a new era. The road is tough. Five of the last seven opponents are ranked in the top 25, including his debut Saturday at No. 12 Tennessee. If he can pull the Hogs out of the trough following a 2-3 start that included heartbreaking, one-possession losses against Ole Miss and Memphis before the bottom fell out two weeks ago in a 56-13 loss to Notre Dame at Razorback Stadium, a full-time gig may await him in December.

“I’m not focused on that right now,” Petrino said. “Honestly, I’m just trying to make sure these eight weeks go well for us. The more focus we have in the eight weeks on helping our players and putting a better product on the field, playing hard, being tough and physical like Razorbacks need to be, then things will take care of themselves.”

The Petrino mystique

It didn’t take long for Arkansas fans to fall in love with Petrino’s quirks and personality when he arrived in Fayetteville in December 2007. Arkansas pulled off a feat that may never be replicated: It stole a sitting NFL head coach from the Atlanta Falcons and got him to leave in the middle of the season to do so. 

He quickly earned a moniker that sticks with him today: BMFP for “Bobby Motherf—ing Petrino.”

When he took over at Arkansas, he inherited a program brimming with in-state talent recruited by his predecessor, Houston Nutt, but lacking a hard-nosed work ethic. And if one thing is true about Petrino, it’s that he is intense. 

The Hogs were successful, advancing to two SEC Championship Games under Nutt, but he did it as a player-friendly coach. Petrino arrived in Fayetteville like a drill sergeant. Tight end D.J. Williams, who won the Mackey Award in 2010, played for both Nutt and Petrino, and to this day cannot recall a funny moment or anecdote from his three seasons playing for Petrino.

“Hell no,” Williams said, chuckling. “You gotta think that we transitioned from coach Nutt, who, if it was hot one day at practice, he would surprise us, tell us to take our shoulder pads off and go to the pool. That was not a thing with coach Petrino.”

Arkansas fans loved seeing a red-faced Petrino criticizing an SEC referee after a penalty and yelling to “Look my players in the eye!” Memes of the moment still circulate on social media 14 years later. 

The build at Arkansas was methodical but consistent, and the win totals increased every year: five games, eight, 10 and then 11. The Hogs advanced to the Bowl Championship Series for the first and only time in history in 2010. They jumped as high as No. 8 that season. 

All-American center Travis Swanson, who started every game for the Razorbacks in 2010-11 under Petrino, likened it to a person working out for the first time and seeing an early progress photo. The team could feel that despite how hard and physically exhausting it was, what Petrino was demanding actually worked. They saw it in how their bodies transformed and how their play improved in practice and in games. 

“He knows what works, he knows how confident he is in what he does and how it works,” Swanson told CBS Sports. “… Everyone says the word grind, everyone says the word hustle, everyone says the word compete. He has this very concrete and interesting way of bridging that gap with young players between what those words are and his genius offensive mentality and bringing out the best of you.”

As the success grew, so did the near-mythical status Petrino possessed around campus and the entire state. When a coach is winning, their personality becomes a phenomenon, particularly in a state where the only sports program that carries any weight is the Arkansas Razorbacks.

BMFP bumper stickers became hot items. 

“There was so much swagger in the program,” said one Arkansas source. “…The mystique and myth of Bobby, his personality actually ended up a positive. He wouldn’t speak to people, but it was like, of course, he doesn’t speak to people. He’s Bobby Motherf—ing Petrino. It became a thing, ‘Of course he didn’t talk to me at the luncheon; he didn’t talk to anybody.'” 

T-shirts with “BMFP” emblazoned across the chest have re-emerged in Fayetteville, too. Petrino claims he never caught wind of the shirts during his first stint. Upon his hiring as offensive coordinator in December 2023, he spotted the shirts in the crowd of a Razorbacks basketball game and asked what it meant.

“I was not on any social media or anything when I was coaching here, so I didn’t really understand it, didn’t really get it. I still don’t,” Petrino said.

To build Arkansas into what he believed was possible, Petrino demanded perfection. That meant intense workouts and pushing players to their mental and physical breaking points. Mistakes elicited sharply worded critiques. 

Petrino could be especially critical when it came to his offense. He was — and still is — an offensive wizard, the “ultimate puppet master” as UAB head coach Trent Dilfer put it to CBS Sports last year. Practices focused on the quarterback’s success, meaning some defensive drills could be overlooked to protect the quarterback and improve timing and confidence. It turned quarterbacks Ryan Mallett and Tyler Wilson into stars, but there was a cost to the approach. 

“Bobby struggled to let the defense be successful because he was such an offensive mind, he couldn’t stand to not be successful, even in practice,” said one source involved with the Arkansas football program during Petrino’s first tenure. 

The defense may have held Arkansas back from a title — giving up 38 and 41 points, respectively, in the Razorbacks’ lone losses — but it was hard to argue it wasn’t a smashing success overall. The Razorbacks went 11-2 in 2011 and finished the season No. 5 after a Cotton Bowl win over Kansas State. The possibilities seemed endless.

“When we’d hear the phrase national champion, no one batted an eye or looked sideways at it,” said Swanson, who went on to play five years in the NFL. “It was just more so the expectation.”

Then, a fateful motorcycle ride in April 2012 brought it all crashing down. 

Tucked inside a floor-level cabinet behind a glass door in a home outside Fayetteville sits an iconic piece of college football lore — the neck brace and Sugar Bowl hat that Petrino wore at his infamous press conference after his motorcycle accident. The image of a bruised and red-faced Petrino still dominates social media anytime the interim Arkansas coach does anything. 

The artifact is not prominently featured in a house packed with trinkets and pieces of Arkansas history, from signed footballs and rare game-used helmets to priceless items like a John Wooden whistle and a pair of Bob Cousy’s game-worn shoes. 

And in a twist that is purely Arkansas, the owner of the infamous Petrino neck brace is Mike Neighbors, who, years after procuring the artifacts, was hired as Arkansas’ women’s basketball coach. 

“I’ve never pointed it out to anybody. I’ve never brought somebody over here and said, ‘Hey, have you seen this?’ I wait to see if they see it and ask a question about it,” Neighbors told CBS Sports during a tour of his home.

“It’s our generation’s moment in time that we all remember. It’s not to make fun of him, it’s out of respect. It’s a Razorback moment that we all remember. We remember all the great games before it and everything that happened as a result of it. It’s a cool thing to have.”

It’s a moment everyone remembers, even though Arkansas attempted to prevent it from ever happening. 

Only two days after a motorcycle accident, Petrino appeared at a press conference wearing a neck brace with numerous abrasions on his face. Arkansas officials urged him not to speak at the press conference, sources told CBS Sports, but he insisted on doing so. 

It was the beginning of the end for Petrino as, days later, more details surrounding the accident and a months-long improper relationship with a staffer emerged. He was ultimately fired for misleading school officials about the relationship and details of the accident. 

Arkansas AD Jeff Long, who declined an interview request for this story, gave an emotional press conference explaining the school’s reasoning for firing its successful coach. He told the world that Petrino had made a conscious decision to mislead the public during that post-motorcycle press conference, which had negatively affected the reputation of both the football program and the university as a whole. 

In his termination letter to Petrino, Long wrote, “I recognize that you are a very talented football coach, but the university may not disregard your conduct or sacrifice its integrity, reputation and principles.”

For those inside the athletic department, it was a hard and shocking day. There was frustration that Petrino imploded a program on the rise that had captivated the state’s attention. 

“All you’ve got to do is just keep coaching football,” said the Arkansas source there at the time. “But he just struggled. He’s a restless soul. He’s just restless.” 

Inside the locker room, the hasty nature of their successful coach’s departure was hard for some to process. They had many of the questions everyone seemed to have: Why? How? What? For team captains like Swanson, the challenge was to rally the team to fight through outside distractions without knowing who would take over or how things would change within the program. 

“I think a lot of it was trying to salvage what we could,” Swanson said. “We were really venturing into this unknown.”

Petrino’s firing was an inflection point for the football program, which hasn’t come close to touching the rocket-fueled excitement experienced in the early 2010s. John L. Smith stepped in as the interim head coach for a team that started the season ranked No. 10 in the country but finished a disappointing 4-8. That’s been the story of much of the post-Petrino Arkansas football experience. The Razorbacks have only one winning season in the SEC (2015) since Petrino’s final year leading the program in 2011. That season ended with a No. 5 national ranking, the program’s highest finish since 1977. 

It’s partly why that period of Arkansas football, despite how it ended, is still fondly remembered by fans. And why Petrino’s neck brace, long believed to be lost to the passage of time, still generates such fascination. 

Neighbors says he acquired the infamous neck brace and Sugar Bowl hat through barter about six weeks after Petrino’s firing, though he won’t reveal the exact details how. 

He loaned the neck brace to a friend for a Halloween costume. In eight seasons as Arkansas’ women’s basketball coach, he hosted dozens of recruits at his home, and no one ever asked him about the neck brace. They were more enthralled by his collection of music legend Prince: a microphone, first-cut albums and a pair of shoes the artist once wore at a concert.

When Petrino returned as Arkansas’ offensive coordinator in December 2023, Neighbors’ dream of asking Petrino to sign the neck brace was reignited as friends called him to discuss the news.

“I have friends all over the country who followed what happened and they’re like, ‘I can’t believe it.’ If you’re from Arkansas, you believe it. That’s just how passionate and unique this fan base is,” said Neighbors, who grew up in Greenwood, Arkansas. “I’ve been from coast to coast, I’ve been in every league, I’ve been in most states. There’s nothing like it. You cannot explain the thirst for the Razorbacks from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on multiple (radio) stations, and multiple people streaming their podcasts. You can’t explain it until you live in this state.”

As painful as the memory is for Petrino and Arkansas fans, it’s still part of the state’s lore and, in a sense, a scar they wear with pride.

“In meetings, he preached character,” Williams said. “I know that was tough for him to preach to a group of guys when he was making decisions at that time that were out of character. When he came and talked at the (Little Rock) Touchdown Club (in 2019), he got emotional. Some people fake it, but you could really see that it was eating him. I really do believe every single word when he says he lost his way and apologized. That was really cool to see. It’s an unfortunate way to get there, but everything happens for a reason. 

“What a story it would be if he could be the full-time head coach again. That’d be pretty wild.”

Bobby’s new world

A man doesn’t think about it while he’s in the arena, but Bobby Petrino’s legacy is still being written. 

After a second stint at Louisville ended in 2018, he returned to coaching at Missouri State in 2020 and led the Bears to the FCS playoffs for the first time in 30 years. “It was probably one of the most gratifying times of my life,” Petrino said.

It even included a return trip to Arkansas a decade after his firing. Petrino’s Missouri State Bears led the top-10 Razorbacks by 10 points with 12 minutes remaining, but the Hogs rallied to score 21 unanswered points to avoid what would have been the sport’s biggest upset since Appalachian State knocked off Michigan in 2007. 

Several of Petrino’s former players were in attendance, hoping to shake his hand and hug their former head coach. Receiver Joe Adams, a consensus All-American in 2011, spoke at length with Petrino outside the visitors’ locker room after the game. Petrino choked back tears when asked by a reporter about his return to Razorback Stadium. Williams, now a radio host in Little Rock, walked on the field to see Petrino after the game for the first time in 12 years.

“You really don’t know what you had until you grow up and understand how essential that was for your individual growth,” Williams said. “At the time, if we ever saw coach Petrino, we would try to find the farthest place away from him just to avoid crossing paths. If you saw him, you’re like, ‘Damn, I hope I’m not doing anything wrong.’ But that night we sought him to say thank you.”

In 2022, he handed the keys to the kingdom to his son-in-law, defensive coordinator Ryan Beard, who is now leading the program in its first year in the FBS. His son, Nick Petrino, is the Bears’ offensive coordinator. His other son-in-law, L.D. Scott, is the defensive coordinator.

Petrino and his wife, Becky, have four adult children. Their daughters, Katie and Kelsey, each have four children, giving Bobby and Becky eight grandchildren to spoil on overnight sleepovers and weekend getaways to destinations like Disney World.

“He still carries a lot of the same intensity, but what I’ve noticed that’s changed with him over the decade is family,” says Steve Cox, a close friend and an Arkansas booster. “That’s his favorite topic now. He lights up talking about his grandkids.”

“My oldest one is a sophomore in high school now,” says Petrino. “I call her the golden child because she lived with us when she was just born. It makes the other ones mad, too, when I call her the golden child. We have a great time. We get back at mom a bit with the fact that I let them have milkshakes before bed. We have chocolate cake for breakfast. I sugar them up and send them home to mom and let her take care of them. 

“There’s no stress involved at all for me with the grandkids. I just have fun with them. The rules at my house are there are no rules for the grandkids.”

The Petrino family is tight, a bond learned from the days Bobby and his brother, Paul, walked from school to the football fields at Carroll College in Helena, Montana, to watch their father, Bob Sr., conduct practices. 

The NAIA Hall of Famer could have been a big-time coach, but his family was more important. He turned down other jobs, focusing on maintaining a solid foundation for his family in Montana. He spent 28 years at Carroll College, during which time he won 14 conference titles. He produced two All-American quarterbacks: sons Bobby and Paul Petrino.

His advice for them as they broke into coaching: “If you want to get ahead, make the big money, you’ve got to keep moving,” Petrino Sr. told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2008.

“I told them to go as far as they can go,” Petrino Sr. said.

That advice seemed to play a role in the itinerant nature of his son’s career. 

Bobby Petrino has been a head coach seven times — twice at Louisville and now twice at Arkansas. He was 41-9 in four seasons at Louisville before leaving to coach the Atlanta Falcons, where he abruptly resigned to take over at Arkansas in December 2007. He returned to Louisville in 2014 and coached Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson but never won more than nine games. He bottomed out in 2018 with a 2-8 record and was fired before the end of the season.

Bobby Petrino’s father was a fixture in the stands at practices, wherever his sons coached. Just days before Louisville’s preseason camp began in 2018, Bob Petrino Sr. died. He was 81. 

“Obviously, I didn’t do a good job of handling it,” Petrino said. “I didn’t do a nice job with the team and failed. And I think it’s affected me tremendously.”

Armed with another second chance with the Razorbacks, Petrino doesn’t appear to be slowing down.

“The alarm clock doesn’t wake me up in the morning because I wake up before it goes off,” Petrino said. “I get up, come in here (into the office) and I get to spend time on my own in the morning. That’s always fun and special. It helps me get prepared for the day and then have a good time with the staff, and get the grind in, game planning scripts and preparing for practice. Then I get to interact with the players when they’re in the weight room or attending meetings. Then it’s off to the practice. The day goes by pretty fast. There’s not a lot of time for thinking. I like it that way.”

Petrino’s first order of business as the interim coach was to retool a defense that ranks in the triple digits in six major defensive categories, including scoring (37.4 ppg, 109th) and total defense (425 ypg, 117th). He fired coordinator Travis Williams, defensive line coach Deke Adams and defensive backs coach Marcus Woodson on the same day he was promoted to interim head coach. Analyst Chris Wilson, previously a coordinator in the UFL and at Colorado and Mississippi State, was promoted to interim coordinator.

Petrino said he has talked to Pittman “a number of times” since he was fired Sept. 28.

“I’m very, very grateful to him,” Petrino said. “He’s the one who gave me this opportunity to come back here. I feel terrible that I wasn’t able to do a better job helping him keep his job.”

The next eight weeks at Arkansas will be difficult. Four of the last seven opponents are ranked in the top 15 nationally, and a trip to rival Texas awaits on Nov. 22. The journey begins Saturday at No. 12 Tennessee.

“I told [Petrino], I don’t expect him to come in with some magic pixie dust and we’re going to go 7-0 the rest of the way with the schedule that we have, but I want to see a team that is much more competitive than we were, especially (against Notre Dame),” Yurachek said last week. “Ole Miss is ranked fourth in the country this week. We’re three weeks removed from having the ball on the 25-yard line with 2 minutes to go, and they most likely were not going to stop us if we don’t fumble that ball. Our season could look totally different if we push that ball in at that game. 

“So we’ve got a good team in that locker room. We’ve got to find that good team again and get them back out on the field when we head to Knoxville.”

Several Arkansas boosters have voiced support for Petrino to become the full-time head coach, sources told CBS Sports, although Yurachek is in the early stages of conducting a nationwide search. 

“I don’t know what the future holds. I would hope that he would get the job,” said Cox, a businessman in nearby Fort Smith. “Not just from a friendship standpoint, but I’ve never seen anyone as organized as Bobby Petrino. He gets the best out of whatever situation he’s in. He’s a genius and I hope gets that opportunity again. I would love to see him become the head coach. He’s still got that fire. He’s got that same intensity, but he’s grounded and steady, more mature. Everybody evolves as they get older. He’s still as good as he ever was, probably better in my opinion.”

The next seven games will show whether Petrino’s second chance turns into an improbable second term with the Hogs. That Petrino even has a chance to be the full-time Arkansas coach again after everything he went through prompted one Razorbacks source to describe him as a “freaking phoenix.” 

And if the great return of Petrino doesn’t result in the permanent gig, what will he do next?

“I don’t know,” he said. “You know, I’m in great health and great shape. I enjoy it. I still love the game planning. I still love going out on the field and practicing every day. That’s the quickest time of the day. The clock ticks. I’ve never felt it was a job. It’s just a way of life that my dad and I chose to have.”