True colors

As a disclaimer, I promise this column will not provide opinion on whether Bobby Petrino should have held onto his job as the University of Arkansas head football coach. That wasn’t my decision, and if you have any doubt in the abilities of Jeff Long after his press conference Tuesday night (April 10), then I can’t help you.

When Long revealed the infamous $20,000 payment from Petrino to Jessica Dorrell, my mind was instantly made up on where I stood on the issue. That being said, my goal with this column is to help put into perspective the importance that some of us (myself included) put on a millionaire who oversees 18-22-year-old guys playing an “amateur” game.

Plenty of revelations have been made since April 1 about Petrino thanks to his motorcycle wreck that Sunday evening. Petrino’s lying in his initial presser following the wreck on April 3 isn’t the first time he’s been caught up in untruthful statements. I mean, the guy has been proven to have fibbed to every boss he’s had since becoming a head coach at Louisville in 2003.

It’s easy to look past all that, however, since Petrino built and took the Arkansas program into heights not seen in Fayetteville since Frank Broyles was roaming the UA sidelines. The 21 wins the past two seasons have helped Hog fans breathe the air in the Southeastern Conference’s upper echelon – a feat Petrino was hired to achieve when he left the Atlanta Falcons in December 2007.

I get his supporters’ stance: They want to keep winning and stay at the top of the SEC as opposed to mingling in the middle of the pack like the days of Houston Nutt. I just hope they fully understand who they’re backing now after more facts have come out about Petrino’s off-the-field actions.

College football’s popularity has soared in the past three decades, especially here in the Southeast where winning championships is the only barometer for the success of programs. The six-straight national titles SEC teams have won have only thrown fuel onto that fire.

Over the span of the rise in popularity, the coaches of these teams have developed egos that increase with every dollar added to the salaries as well as every triumph achieved from September to January. As those egos have gotten bigger, the feelings of invincibility have gotten more and more out of hand.

Please know I’m not just picking on Petrino. Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel was arrested in November for a DWI. Pinkel’s punishment was being relinquished of the demands and pressures of being a major Bowl Championship Series program head coach for seven whole days without pay. That ought to teach him not to do that again.

We can’t look past the lies that cost Jim Tressel his job when he thought it’d be better to cover up NCAA violations than report them and keep moving forward with a few slaps on the wrist. Now, Urban Meyer has to deal with even more caution than he would have in order to keep the Ohio State’s reputation clean from all wrongdoing in the NCAA’s and the public’s eye.

Speaking of Meyer …

Early last week, The Sporting News’ ace writer Matt Hayes released a column intended to shed some light on the two-faced behavior of the former University of Florida head man since Meyer arrived in Columbus late last November. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend as Hayes pulls off the gloves and goes after one of college football’s icons and top coaches from the 2000s.
aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2012-04-09/urban-meyer-florida-ohio-state-ncaa-violation-recruiting-drugs-program-will-musc?eadid=EL/SICOM

For six years, Florida fans looked past the off-field issues that plagued the Gator program under Meyer’s leadership. When Meyer relinquished his job to Will Muschamp following a 7-5 regular season in 2010, you would search high and low amongst the UF fan base to find someone to say a negative thing about the coach that tripled the school’s national championship total and added another Heisman Trophy winner to the storied Florida football history.

Now, it’s much more difficult to find a Meyer apologist in the Sunshine State after the Gators have totaled just 15 wins over the course of the past two seasons. Muschamp found a much more depleted roster than he had thought when he accepted Jeremy Foley’s offer to leave the University of Texas, proving true the old adage that “things rarely are as good as they seem.”

What does this have to do with Petrino? If Arkansas fans aren’t careful, they’ll find themselves eating their words about the man who engineered UA’s first 11-win season since 1977 in 2011. In the case of UA, a majority of the off-field issues surround a now-fired head coach – not any players.

Arkansas will be fine in the long run, although this year’s team may suffer a bit from Petrino’s self-inflicted termination. Offensive coordinator Paul Petrino and quarterback Tyler Wilson know Bobby Petrino’s offense as well as anyone, but it’s still not the same as having Bobby Petrino calling the shots (or at least overseeing the play calls) on game day.

My main point is that the distance between the top and the bottom of the SEC isn’t as vast as it used to be. A big reason for that is the work of guys like Petrino and Meyer on fall Saturdays.

Just make sure you keep your respect and adoration to the school, the teams and the wins and losses, not the above-the-law psyche we have helped create for these coaches.

Remember: Eventually, everyone’s true colors show.