Petrino always a bird of a non-NFL feather

Bob Petrino and the NFL just aren't meant to be.

He never liked it much as an assistant and he never warmed to it as the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons.

So Petrino resigned Tuesday and looks to be headed back to the college ranks where it is expected he will be named the head coach at Arkansas.

From the moment Bobby Petrino took over in Atlanta, tensions ran high. (Getty Images)

Petrino is a hard-ass, which is as matter-of-fact as you can put it. I told him as much during a training camp visit, and he looked at me in shock.

"Me?" he said.

Yes, you.

When he was the offensive coordinator in Jacksonville under Tom Coughlin, Petrino was a quiet, unassuming man who rarely talked. He was nice enough, and surely didn't seem like the ogre he was portrayed to be as the head coach at Louisville.

He didn't like the way Coughlin wouldn't allow kids in the facility or on the field and some of the other rules Coughlin installed for his staff. So he left the NFL because he wanted to be able to spend more time with his children.

Yet, somewhere on the road to returning to the NFL, Petrino strangely became more and more like Coughlin.

No wonder his players never liked him. Truth be known, he wasn't exactly enamored with some of his players, either.

Shortly after taking the Falcons job last spring, he became angry with corner DeAngelo Hall over the way he was working. So frustrated with Hall was Petrino that he told staffers he planned to take down Hall's portrait on the wall near his office, which featured portraits of the team's top players.

Smart staffers wisely told him that would be a bad way to start out as a first-year head coach and he relented. His disdain for Hall never did.

Petrino struggled to communicate with his players, according to team sources. Staffers sat in on interviews with him -- at his urging. The tension was thick around the building, and it wasn't just because the star quarterback was headed to prison.

With his team floundering, Petrino did Tuesday what has been rumored for months, which is head back to the college ranks. He never fit in on the NFL level.

One thing's for sure: He won't be getting paid like he did in the NFL. His salary was close to $5 million with the Falcons. He'll probably get more like $3 million from Arkansas.

That means he's losing about $8 million over the next four years by leaving.