Coach Petrino's conduct regarding his account of the accident jeopardized the integrity of the football program. He made a choice to return to practice on Tuesday, to hold a press conference, and to demonstrate his physical resiliency and command of his program, all the time failing to correct his initial report that he was the only person involved in the accident. He made a conscious decision to speak and mislead the public on Tuesday. In doing so, he negatively and adversely affected the reputation of the University of Arkansas and our football program.
Fast forward to today. John L Smith is the interim coach and Arkansas has become the punchline of college football. Now we come to the question that no one can truly answer. Which is more important in the south? Integrity of a University or a winning football program? There's a facebook page "Bring Back Bobby Petrino in 2013". It's still up in the air if Derek Dooley will survive this season at Tennessee, Joker Phillips is done and Gene Chizik is beginning to feel the heat at Auburn.
I agree with Paul Finebaum when he was on OTL on ESPN when he said (and I paraphrase) that John L Smith is responsible for the product on the field, but Jeff Long is responsible for putting him in that position. John L Smith has been nothing but a circus act. He was suppose to plug into the system that was already created by Petrino, yeah that didn't work. Firing John L Smith would only be more embarassing for this season and probably make Arkansas fans praying the Mayans were correct. Cut your losses for this season and get a hire that's going to put them back.
Hiring Bobby Petrino back at Arkansas answers the question that everyone already knew the answer to. A winning football program in the SEC is more important.
