The Hlog

More Coaching Kookiness

Bobby Petrino leaves Louisville to sign a 5-year contract to coach the NFL's Atlanta Falcons, then resigns before his first season there is done to become Arkansas' new coach?

So the Southeastern Conference, if this report turns out to be true, is getting yet another carpetbagger of a coach. Nick Saban abandoned the Miami Dolphins in mid-contract last year for Alabama. LSU's Les Miles ... well Les Miles justs seems to say whatever suits his needs at the given moment. He's staying at LSU, but only because it kicked his pay up a whole bunch.

Petrino thought he'd have a top-flight quarterback in Atlanta. But that guy did bad things to dogs and doesn't play for the Falcons anymore. He's doing time. These college guys, like Saban and Steve Spurrier and Petrino, quickly find out that coaching in the NFL means far less true control than what they knew in college, where they're emperors. They weary of that in a hurry and yearn to be back in charge of a college program, where the competiton is easier and the criticism less.

College coaches who leap to the NFL find ut they're against top coaches and top talent week after week, and can't pad their schedules with nonconference fluff to prop up their records. So the SEC, which has mastered staying close to home to play nonconference cream puffs, has Saban and Spurrier, Miles and Tommy Tuberville, Mark Richt and apparently now Petrino. Fine coaches, all. But if they played SEC games and only SEC games, some would have losing records.

Wait a second, I almost forgot Louisiana-Monroe beat Saban's Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa a few weeks ago.

That was great.


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