Bobby Petrino motorcycle scandal: Why former Arkansas football coach was fired in 2012
Author Thomas Wolfe titled one of his most famous novels “You Can’t Go Home Again.”
Bobby Petrino, though, has now managed to do it twice.
In an unexpected turn of events, Petrino has reportedly been hired as the new offensive coordinator at Arkansas, where he was the head coach from 2008-11. It’s not the first time Petrino has returned to a past coaching stop: He was hired in 2014 as the head coach at Louisville, where he had previously served in the same role from 2003-06. He was later fired by the Cardinals in 2018.
Petrino has long been regarded as one of the most innovative and effective offensive minds in college football, regularly churning out teams that lit up scoreboards. His success as a head coach was perhaps best exhibited by his tenure at Arkansas, which included a 21-5 mark in his final two seasons at the school in 2010 and 2011.
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But three months after guiding Arkansas to an 11-2 record and a win in the Cotton Bowl, Petrino was fired amid a motorcycle accident-turned-scandal in 2012 — an embattled exit that makes his return even more unusual, even almost 12 full years later.
Here's everything you need to know about Petrino's first exit from Arkansas:
Bobby Petrino Arkansas motorcyle scandal
Petrino and the Arkansas program were in an enviable position in the spring of 2012, fresh off a season in which they went 11-2 and won a Cotton Bowl, with many key players from that squad returning for an encore performance. The Razorbacks appeared poised to break through in the SEC West, a division that had been dominated in recent years by Alabama and LSU.
That upward trajectory came to a sharp and immediate halt on an April 1 motorcycle ride that turned out to be anything but an April Fool’s Day joke.
An avid rider, Petrino crashed his motorcycle on a two-lane highway about 20 miles southeast of Fayetteville. In the wreck, Petrino suffered four broken ribs, a cracked vertebra in his neck and numerous abrasions on his face. In a now-infamous news conference in which he appeared in a neck brace, Petrino said the accident occurred because the sun and wind caused him to lose control of the motorcycle. Arkansas confirmed the wreck, noting that he was in stable condition and that the accident “involved no other individuals.”
A state police report, however, shed more light on the incident and countered some of the sparse details the university had publicly provided. Petrino had been on his motorcycle with somone: Jessica Dorrell, whom he had hired the previous month as the Razorbacks’ player development coordinator. Dorrell, a former Arkansas volleyball player, had previously worked for the Razorback Foundation, a fundraising arm of the university’s athletic department.
As it turned out, the two were more than just colleagues. The then-51-year-old Petrino, a married father of four, had maintained an inappropriate relationship with Dorrell, who was 25 years old at the time, for what Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long described as a "significant" period of time. At one point, Long said, Petrino had given Dorrell a $20,000 gift.
About 20 minutes before the police report became public, Petrino admitted to his relationship with Dorrell and her being with him on the motorcycle.
Petrino’s relationship with Dorrell within the Arkansas program represented a notable conflict of interest and raised viable questions of favoritism. Dorrell was one of three finalists and 159 applicants for the position, and Petrino sought to bypass a university affirmative action policy that requires a job opening be posted for at least 30 days before interviews could begin. Additionally, during the hiring process, Petrino hadn’t disclosed his relationship to Dorrell or his payment to her.
Further complicating matters was that Dorrell had reportedly been engaged at one point to Josh Morgan, the athletic department's director of swimming and diving operations.
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Why did Bobby Petrino leave Arkansas?
Petrino didn’t have much of a choice in his departure from Arkansas.
After revealing his relationship with Dorrell to Long, Petrino was placed on paid leave and was subjected to a review of his conduct.
As the review took place, state police released audio of a 911 call reporting Petrino’s accident. The call showed that Petrino didn’t want to call police in the aftermath of his wreck. A later police report noted that the Razorbacks’ coach asked if he was required to provide the name of the passenger on the bike with him. While Long did not disclose what it was for, he said both Petrino and Dorrell confirmed the $20,000 payment.
Upon completion of the review, Petrino was fired on April 10, nine days after his accident.
"He made the decision, a conscious decision, to mislead the public on Tuesday, and in doing so negatively and adversely affected the reputation of the University of Arkansas and our football program," Long said. "In short, Coach Petrino engaged in a pattern of misleading and manipulative behavior designed to deceive me and members of the athletic staff, both before and after the motorcycle accident."
Petrino was fired for cause, denying him the $18 million buyout he otherwise would have been owed under the terms of a seven-year contract that paid him an average of $3.53 million annually. A clause in Petrino’s contract permitted the coach to be suspended or fired for "negatively or adversely affects the reputation of the (university's) athletics programs in any way."
"Our expectations of character and integrity in our employees can be no less than what we expect of our students," Long said. "No single individual is bigger than the team, the Razorback football program of the University of Arkansas."
Shortly after his ouster, Petrino released an apologetic statement:
"The simplest response I have is: I'm sorry. These two words seem very inadequate. But that is my heart," Petrino said in a statement. "All I have been able to think about is the number of people I've let down by making selfish decisions. I've taken a lot of criticism in the past. Some deserved, some not deserved. This time, I have no one to blame but myself. I chose to engage in an improper relationship. I also made several poor decisions following the end of that relationship and in the aftermath of the accident. I accept full responsibility for what has happened."
Petrino did not coach during the 2012 season, but was hired by Western Kentucky in December 2012, about eight months after his firing at Arkansas. He spent one season with the Hilltoppers before returning to Louisville.
Under interim head coach John L. Smith, a Razorbacks team that began the season ranked No. 10 in the preseason Coaches Poll finished 4-8 overall and 2-6 in the SEC.
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Bobby Petrino record at Arkansas
In his four years at Arkansas, Petrino’s teams went 34-17. In three of those four seasons, the Razorbacks made a bowl game, including two bowls, the Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl, that are now part of college football’s New Year’s Six rotation.
2008: 5-7 (2-6 in SEC play)
2009: 8-5 (3-5 in SEC play)
2010: 10-3 (6-2 in SEC play)
2011: 11-2 (6-2 in SEC play)
His team’s 11 wins in 2011 are tied for the most of any team in Arkansas program history.
Bobby Petrino past teams coached
Aside from his four-year stint in Fayeteville, Petrino also served as a head coach in both major college football and the NFL. He led the Cardinals, now members of the ACC, in both Conference USA (2003-04) and the Big East (2005-06).
He left Louisville to coach the Atlanta Falcons in the NFL for the 2007 season, but left amid a 3-10 start to coach Arkansas from 2008-11. Following his stint in Fayetteville, he led Western Kentucky to an 8-4 regular-season record in 2013.
He returned to Louisville in 2014, leading the Cardinals from 2014-18 before his firing in 2018. He then pivoted to coach Missouri State from 2020-22 before returning to coach in the SEC as Jimbo Fisher's coordinator at Texas A&M.
In all, he has a 137–71 record in college and 3-10 mark in the NFL.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Bobby Petrino motorcycle scandal: Why Arkansas coach was fired in 2012
