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ACC QUESTION of the Week: Is it time for Louisville to part with Bobby Petrino?
The effort isn’t there. “Toxicity” is too strong a word, but Louisville football is profoundly unhealthy right now. No one is happy. Few people — players or coaches — are performing up to expected standards. This season has already become a disaster. With Clemson and North Carolina State still on the schedule, Louisville will probably miss a bowl, which is entirely unacceptable for the amount of money being paid to Bobby Petrino to coach football.
Viewed narrowly, this situation would seem to justify a coach firing.
If only life was that simple.
First things first: If you haven’t followed my work at Patreon or previous media companies which employed me (Comeback Media, formerly Bloguin; FanRag Sports; and in an earlier time, College Football News), know this: I thought Petrino never deserved to be a Power 5 head coach after his atrocious and appalling conduct at the University of Arkansas. The affair was not the reason — interfering with employment processes at a state institution represented the high administrative sin which should have kept Petrino out of the privileged position of a Power 5 head coach for good. It was — and always will be — terrible that Tom Jurich welcomed back Petrino with open arms and gave him a lucrative deal. It never should have happened in the first place, so from THAT vantage point, I will say that Petrino should not be the head coach of the Cardinals right now.
Yet, that’s not the world we live in… and under the current circumstances, Louisville can’t fire Petrino for a number of reasons.
The first reason is the most obvious and familiar one: money.
Louisville can’t pay a large buyout — not after hiring Chris Mack to run the basketball program. Blame Jurich or other involved parties for this contract, but the program can’t dump that amount of money to hire a new coach in 2019. Who would come and accept the diminished numbers which would be placed on the negotiating table? Nope. You can’t do it. Moreover, Louisville athletics is awash in numerous changes. The program has so much faith and trust to rebuild in the wake of the basketball mess that it is simply not ready to tackle a football transition. The athletic department needs another year to breathe and — if 2019 goes off the rails — reassess the situation.
All of that aside, what if 2019 is a good season for Louisville? The thought is not preposterous.
Consider this: What if Louisville had not royally screwed up the Florida State endgame? Chances are the team would have played with a lot more pride than it showed against Georgia Tech. Louisville still has fast and talented receivers. Even amid the wreckage of this season, one can easily imagine the passing game clicking into place next year, giving UL a 7-5 or 8-4 season. That’s not where this program expects to be, but after the previous two seasons of Lamar Jackson euphoria, would one disastrous 2018 campaign, followed by an ordinary-but-not-terrible 2019, be THAT intolerable for Louisville?
Even if the buyout math was a lot more reasonable, it would not be a slam-dunk to say Petrino should be gone. He is not the first coach to struggle the first year after a Heisman Trophy quarterback leaves his program, and he surely won’t be the last.
I know Louisville football fans are miserable right now, and they have every right to be. I know the program is in a dark place, and I know that Tom Jurich did a lot of things to create this terrible situation… one of them being the contract he drew up with Petrino in the first place. I know that specific reality does not sit well with Louisville fans, and I know that arguing against a pink slip for Petrino seems to be another victory for Jurich, which only adds to UL fans’ sense of anger.
I get ALL of that… but when was it said that life is fair?
Louisville is stuck with Petrino for 2019. That’s not the way it should be, but it’s the way it is. UL will have to pay even more of a price for the sins of Tom Jurich… but not in the form of a very large buyout. One more year of mediocre football, should it come to that, is the more reasonable payment.
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