Bobby Petrino is Boss Hog once more. He will serve as the Razorbacks’ interim coach for the rest of the 2025 season after the university made the decision to move on from Sam Pittman amid a 2-3 start to the year.
According to athletic director Hunter Yurachek, there’s a chance that Petrino’s stint back on top extends beyond the temporary.
“As we move forward in the process of finding our next head coach, I am certain we will be able to provide the necessary resources to our staff and team to reach our goals,” Yurachek said in a statement. “We will begin a national search for our next head coach immediately and that search will include Coach Petrino, who has expressed his desire to be a candidate for the full-time job.”
Petrino has re-introduced himself to the Razorbacks as Arkansas’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach over the past two seasons. But that’s not how most Arkansas fans know him.
He first introduced himself to Fayetteville from 2008-11 as one of Arkansas’ most successful coaches since Lou Holtz was patrolling the sidelines. In spite of the fact that he won 21 games in his last two years, though, he made it just four seasons with Arkansas.
Here’s a look back at Petrino’s tenure with Arkansas, his ignominious falling out and his potential path back towards redemption.
Sam Pittman is a great guy who once saved Arkansas football, but it was time for him to go
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Petrino’s first stint
Former Arkansas coach Houston Nutt resigned from his position with the Razorbacks three days after the 2007 regular season ended amid some off-field noise about his recruiting efforts and his handling of Arkansas’ personnel. That put the Razorbacks in a bit of a bind, since Nutt won the SEC West three times and produced winning seasons in all but three of his years at Arkansas.
Around the same time, Petrino, who saw his coaching star rise at Louisville from 2003-06, was flaming out in his first NFL opportunity with the Atlanta Falcons. Petrino made it just 13 games with the Falcons — which is tied with Holtz and Urban Meyer for the third-shortest non-interim tenure in NFL history — before he resigned, interviewed with Arkansas, and made his return to the college game.
He won just two SEC games while going 5-7 in his first year at Arkansas. In 2009, he turned that into an 8-5 record punctuated by a win against East Carolina in the Liberty Bowl, giving the Razorbacks their first postseason victory since 2003.
Arkansas took it to another level in 2010. The Razorbacks won 10 regular-season games and made it to the Sugar Bowl, where they lost to Ohio State.
The 2011 season cemented Arkansas’ status as an ascendant SEC competitor. Petrino led the Razorbacks to just their third 11-win season in program history, and first since 1977, and Arkansas finished at No. 5 in the AP Top 25 after beating Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl.
That’s when things started to unravel.
The unceremonious end
In April 2012, Petrino was involved in a motorcycle accident while driving on the highway. He initially claimed that he was alone on the vehicle when the mishap occurred.
But, as reports started to assert otherwise, Petrino admitted that he was on the motorcycle with former Arkansas volleyball player Jessica Dorrell, who he had hired in March of that same year as a member of his recruiting staff. He also admitted to an affair with Dorrell.
Petrino was fired for cause nine days after the accident after an Arkansas investigation accused Petrino of misleading the administration during Dorrell’s hiring process and in the days following the motorcycle accident. Arkansas also found that Petrino frequently sent Dorrell gifts, and that he was part of the hiring committee when she was granted her position with the football program.
There is no justification,” Petrino said in a 2012 interview with ESPN. “There is no excuse for having her in the interview pool, hiring her, having her on the back of the motorcycle. I look back on it and there is no good answer. I wasn’t thinking and I wasn’t acting correctly.
“That’s not how I was raised. That’s not how I raised my children. I take responsibility for it and I am really sorry. I have played it over and over in my head a million times. How could I do this? How could this happen? And not just the hiring. Or that day. But my actions, my behavior — for months it was just wrong.”
The return and potential redemption
It didn’t take long for Petrino to make his return to the coaching ranks. He was hired at Western Kentucky in Dec. 2012 and, after one year with the Hilltoppers, made his way back to Louisville, where he posted a 77-35 record over five years.
From 2020-22, he led Missouri State at the FCS level and then started to work his way back into the FBS ranks as an offensive coordinator under Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M in 2023. He made it one season with the Aggies before Pittman brought him back to the Natural State.
He’s certainly left his mark as a play-caller. Arkansas’ offense has been one of the lone bright spots for the program in recent years. The Razorbacks finished the 2024 season second in the SEC in total yards (459.2 yards per game) while scoring 30.9 points per game.
They’re off to another strong start in 2025. They’re one of four SEC programs to average at least 500 yards per game and Arkansas is third in the SEC. The Razorbacks also scored at least 30 points in all four games before Saturday’s 56-13 loss to Notre Dame.
His offense has played well enough that he’s earned another look in Arkansas’ coaching search. The fact that Arkansas hired him as an assistant and then trusted him as the program’s shepherd in a time of transition shows that it may have moved on enough from his past to consider him a legitimate candidate.
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