re: Petrino vs Bert

I guess Petrino just didn't recruit any players after 2008. I don't care how bad a coach John L Smith is/was, Arkansas should not have gone 4-8 in 2012 and should not have lost to fricking La Monroe. And basically one year in turmoil shouldn't completely destroy a football program unless Petrino flat out stopped recruiting a couple years before getting fired.

There is a reason the players we have this year are about to be juniors and 3rd year starters. Petrino got a few really good recruits but when half of your class never makes it to campus, gets arrested or transfers then it's just hard to catch up.

Just look at his 2010 class- LINK

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who exactly did Arkansas lost from the 2011 team that had y'all go from 11-2 to 4-8 a season later? Yeah, Petrino's idiotic behavior caused a rift, but it shouldn't have been as catastrophic as it ended up being. That should not have sent you from back to back top 10 seasons to back to back sub 5 win seasons

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In all honesty, I agree. We shouldn't have hired Smiley.

However, we had no control over the biggest problem, which was the media. For starters, 2012 was already going to be a down year for us and they were calling us a national title contender (now they'll blame us for that, but ESPN began saying it in 2011). They also had it out for Arkansas, because Petrino was our coach, so when we fired him, it took a while for them to back off.

Truth is that we didn't perform that much worse then should have been expected, but the media just made it appear that we had.

Btw, I actually thought the drop-off would begin in 2011 and ended up surprised that we did so well that year. I still think our 2010 team was better, though.

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Could you argue that Petrino left Arkansas in the best shape it has ever been?

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Not if you have any clue of what you are talking about. 2014 was going to be a big rebuilding year no matter if the coach was Petrino, Bielema or Nick Saban.

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I guess Petrino just didn't recruit any players after 2008. I don't care how bad a coach John L Smith is/was, Arkansas should not have gone 4-8 in 2012 and should not have lost to fricking La Monroe. And basically one year in turmoil shouldn't completely destroy a football program unless Petrino flat out stopped recruiting a couple years before getting fired.

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From the 2012 recruiting class...like 8 didn't leave for something

Coaches tanked the 2012 season and tried to load up on 2 star recruits that Bert immediately cut loose something like 10 commits when he got here and was behind the 8ball on 2 recruiting cycles. We're still 2 years away from Bert having a whole squad of his guys.

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so is it Petrino is a shitty recruiter but doesn't need good players to win a lot of games or is it that Petrino has just been lucky at every stop he's made?

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Petrino is a great coach, but he is not a good recruiter. He also still needs talent to win. Those 2010 and 2011 teams certainly had plenty of talent, albeit primarily on offense. He did manage to recruit some pretty good defensive line talent as well. The pieces were there in 2012 to make a run, but he still would have lost to Bama.

Had he not crashed into the ditch, everybody would have seen what he was really made of in 2013. There was too much talent lost and not enough help on the way. He probably would have done better than 3-8 with wins over Rutgers, Miss. St. and LSU.

The only problem is that Petrino has never stayed anywhere long enough to see if his way is sustainable. Bert has.

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Had he not crashed into the ditch, everybody would have seen what he was really made of in 2013.

The only problem is that Petrino has never stayed anywhere long enough to see if his way is sustainable. Bert has.

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This x infinity.

Seeing Petrino coach our 2013 roster is one of the great "what ifs" I've ever had as it relates to college football. He would've almost certainly left for a different job after 2012, and 2013 would've been a terrible year regardless. Something like 25 of the recruits from our 2010 and 2011 classes either never made it to campus or had washed out by 2012, so our 2013 senior class was as shallow as it gets.

Petrino is a great offensive football coach, but he quite literally does not care about defense (there are interesting stories about our practices) and is a colossally terrible recruiter because of his terrible personality. Plus, he's never been in a position where he's had to sustain his own success. His job stops have been 4 years (L-ville), 4 years (Arkansas), 1 year (WKU) and 1 year (L-ville), so he's never had to build a sustainable roster.

I would bet anything that he bolts Louisville again for a different job within the next 3 years (I could see him in the Pac 12), but we won't be seeing him back in the SEC.