Forgiving and forgetting sounds like a nice virtue and all, but anyone who can say they'll be able to forget the above image is lying.
Bobby Petrino's name and face will always evoke unavoidable images of the disastrous, you-can't-make-this-stuff-up way his tenure at Arkansas disintegrated. And given the deceitful way he left previous stops at Louisville and Atlanta, it's hard for anyone to conjure a significant amount of respect for the guy as a person.
But college football is a bottom-line business now more than ever, and personality flaws are a footnote compared to the ability to win football games. Petrino is as good as anyone at concocting ways to win football games, so it was only a matter of time before someone hired him.
My guess after his embarrassing departure from Arkansas was that he'd have to pay a penance in the form of time served out of big-time coaching. He has a fantastic offensive mind and would work wonders anywhere he landed as an offensive coordinator, but it was hard to imagine a college head coach possessing the confidence and security to bring him aboard given 1) Petrino has a record of being a treacherous son of a gun, and 2) It'd only be a matter of time before fans of that particular school began clamoring for Petrino to take over. Most head coaches are jittery and always looking over their shoulder, and for good reason. It just doesn't make sense for a coach to hire one of the best head coaches in football as a subordinate.
Two more likely options, I reasoned at the time, were catching on as an NFL assistant for a couple of years before returning to the college game, or joining a smaller college program for a couple of years before returning to the (major) college game.
It just didn't seem likely that he'd be able to land at a major program right away. The only place that seemed a possibility was Auburn, because, well, Auburn possesses a record of having treacherous people in power who think nothing of, say, taking secret plane rides to interview prospective head coaches when the sitting head coach is still employed. But Auburn is at a juncture where it's trying to clean itself up, so the flirtation with Petrino was limited to a reported short phone call.
Just think of this gig as another step in the figurative penal system. He's on parole and wearing a Western Kentucky ankle bracelet for a while.
Some Tuesday links:
-- This Birmingham columnist says WKU made a great hire, and I agree. A lot of national media types are predictably wringing their hands, but what would they propose? That the guy be banned from the game forever?
Imagine how Charlie Strong and Mark Stoops must feel. Strong stayed at Louisville only to have Petrino, who did an even better job with the Cardinals, move into his back yard. Stoops took the Kentucky job, and who does he face in his first game next Aug. 31?
Petrino and Western Kentucky.
Petrino could exact some quick revenge next season on two of the SEC programs that snubbed him. After opening with Kentucky, Western Kentucky goes to see Butch Jones and Tennessee.
Right now, Petrino is a better coach than Strong, a better coach than Jones, a better coach than Malzahn. To be blunt, Auburn hired a coach it believes can deliver the kind of results that Petrino's already produced.
He's going to win at Western Kentucky. Don't be surprised if he wins his way back into the SEC in three years because SEC programs care more about winning than anything else, too. They're just not always as honest about it as Western Kentucky was Monday.
-- So while a cluster of ACC schools have taken issue with their conference for not being serious enough about football, a cluster of Big East schools are ticked at their conference for not being serious enough about basketball. Given that football represents a reported 80 percent of current TV contracts ... good luck with that.
-- This New York Times columnist comes forth with the shocking revelation that college sports are no longer intramural and -- gasp! -- make a ton of money.
-- And Appalachian State center Brian Okam explains the worst free-throw attempt you've ever seen or will see.
LW
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