Kentucky Wildcat Football: Louisville Cardinals’ Comments on Bobby Petrino to Kentucky 14 months ago

April 3, 2012; Fayetteville, AR, USA; Arkansas Razorback head coach Bobby Petrino speaks at a press conference at Razorback Stadium following a motorcycle accident he sustained on April 1. Mandatory Credit: Beth Hall-USA TODAY Sports

The University of Louisville’s recent re-hire of Bobby Petrino to fill the head football coaching position Charlie Strong vacated for oranger pastures of Texas is the talk of the town… or ‘ville today. Hearing Louisville fans praise his past revitalization of the program, his tenure at Western, and on-field abilities even at Arkansas. What you also hear are Kentucky fans asking “if only there was some way of capturing all the garbage these same people said when Petrino talked about wanting to come to Kentucky.”

Well my fellow Wildcat fans here are a few remarks, comments, tweets and articles.

Rick Bozich ask why would Kentucky or Tennessee want a coach like this in his 9/1/2013 article after Western Kentucky beat Kentucky:

"Kentucky and Tennessee both had coaching openings after last season. Neither placed a phone call to Petrino.You can’t criticize either school for that. His image was at least semi-toxic. His exit at Arkansas for lying about an affair with a subordinate combined with the way he walked out on the Atlanta Falcons in mid-season combined with the way he lied about pursuing job openings when he coached at the University of Louisville made it impossible for an SEC athletic director to wade into an introductory press conference and expect to win."

ESPN’s Edward Ashcroft after the speculation of Petrino to Kentucky asked on 11/8/2012 if Petrino is worth the PR nightmare?

"But is he worth all the baggage for athletic director Mitch Barnhart? Is he really worth the public relations nightmare for Kentucky and the mounds and mounds of criticism that will be hurled Barnhart’s way? And will he even stick around Lexington long enough to make the Wildcats any sort of contender in the SEC East? He really doesn’t have a very good track record with staying at places very long (just ask the Atlanta Falcons)."

Sports Illustrated’s Stewart Mandel says it best that winning takes precedence over everything else shortly after he was hired to WKU on 12/10/2012

It’s no surprise that Bobby Petrino is returning to a college sideline less than  a year after his scandalous ouster at Arkansas. Petrino may be a complete  sleazeball, but he wins football games, which takes precedence over almost  everything else on most campuses.

On Twitter, people took to respond to the news that Petrino was interested in the Cats:

And of course some found humor in the situation:

But likely my favorite were the words of Cardinal Nation in the Card Chronicle ‘s post by Mike Rutherford  on 11/7/2012. While Mike was kind enough to leave the unkind to the comments section, the comments section now reads a list of jokes about their own football program.

"This means UK would have to give up their “Your-coach-had-an-affair” jokes"

"I don’t think it would be worth it to them."

It obviously means we now have 2x the jokes. Thanks Tom Jurich…

Another comment says:

"Make this happen, Mitch. You’ll love him. Until you catch him flirting with the next SEC opening. And the one after that. And the one after that, and the one after that…"

Then there’s

"You now have a former Louisville coach who didn’t just cheat on his wife, but had a mistress,…… and put her on the University payroll,….. and lied about it when he got caughtOpen letter to Mitch: Dear Mitch, please do this. Do it now.Sincerely, All the Jokes"

Now UL now has both…

and…

"It’s funny what desperation can do"

"Funny sad and pathetic."

"We have Charlie. Go for it UK, we’re good here."

Oh isn’t it funny what desperation can do? You no longer have Charlie. And you now have your own garbage being fed to you. Enjoy the taste Cards fans.