Missouri State v Arkansas
Getty Images

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- This Bobby Petrino story has to begin with a ground rule for Arkansas' 2024 season: Sam Pittman has no ego. 

The Razorbacks coach said exactly that regarding his new offensive coordinator during countless offseason interviews. Actually, Pittman doesn't even have to say it. By hiring Petrino as his play-caller, he is acknowledging three distinct realties: 

  1. Petrino is revered here as arguably the most successful Arkansas coach in the last 35 years.
  2. Pittman is on the hot seat, his job definitely in danger.
  3. Petrino would be a great -- actually, desired -- replacement for Pittman.

Ask anyone in these parts with a plastic Hog head atop their dome.

"There's nobody out there they could have hired who could have calmed the masses [like Petrino]" said David Bazzel, a former Arkansas team captain and local radio personality. 

Nobody except Robert Patrick Petrino -- coach, lightning rod, legend, noted motorcycle rider and ... coach-in-waiting? His return has turned Arkansas into one of most significant soap operas in a conference full of them since, well ... you know. 

It was 12 years ago that Petrino was fired after an inappropriate relationship with a 25-year-old former volleyball player and then lying about it to then-athletic director Jeff Long. The story was TMZ bait -- too good (or bad) to ignore. There was a motorcycle (the head Hog on a hog). There was blood. There were cops. There was a neck brace.

There was plenty of outrage. 

"Petrino can't recruit because every mama who does let him in the door will be shooting him the stink eye," I wrote back then, advocating for his ouster. "They are wives and mothers, too, just like his wife and his children's mother, Becky."

What the critics ignored was that, over time, Petrino's legend grew for what he had been hired to do: win. His .667 winning percentage in four seasons was the program's fourth-best all time for a coach that lasted more than two years. It wasn't Frank Broyles, the godfather of Razorback football, or even Lou Holtz, but gosh, it felt good.

The years that followed Petrino's departure hurt more than the firing itself because of what he had left behind. Swagger. Success. 

Arkansas hasn't been able to replace a coach who led the Hogs to their highest ranking in 34 years in 2011. Petrino posted back-to-back double-digits win seasons (2010, 2011) for the first time in 22 years. The program cycled through three coaches since Petrino's termination -- Pittman is the fourth -- searching for the magic of the foundation he laid. 

In a weird, convoluted sense, they might have found it. Petrino, at 63, is still in his coaching sweet spot. Last year, he was Texas A&M's offensive coordinator in Jimbo Fisher's ill-fated final season. Before that, Petrino led FCS Missouri State to its first conference title in 30 years. 

"I think Arkansas fans have always wondered 'What if? What might have happened?'" Bazzel said. "This gives them a little bit of an answer. Bobby gets to come back and finish as an assistant."

An assistant ... for now. 

Here's the convoluted part: There are so many ways this could go. For Petrino to become a coach again at Arkansas, Pittman would have to get fired; the staff would ostensibly be part of the reason. That is, unless the offense is good enough under Petrino not to be the underlying reason.

And that putrid Arkansas offense is absolutely why he was brought in. The Hogs were 107th in both passing offense and total offense last season. 

"I think he could be blindfolded and do better than we did last year," Bazzel said of Petrino. 

A lot of the fan base doesn't care how it gets done. Do not pass interim, go directly to the coach's office. Pittman practically acknowledges all this. 

"Oh yeah, he could be a good one [head coach]," he said of Petrino. "He could be a great one."

Those fans are so jazzed, some of them have come to refer to him down here as "BFP" -- Bobby F---ing Petrino.

Talk about subtext to a season. Petrino's return has flown under the radar right up until this opening week of the season. Florida State's ACC issues, the House v. NCAA settlement, NIL and realignment all grabbed the headlines. Maybe that was best for all those involved at Arkansas. 

"Gosh, I wish I could think about it," Petrino said when asked at a recent press conference about his return to Arkansas. 

CBS Sports asked to speak to Petrino one-on-one several times throughout the offseason. The interview was never arranged. For a school that experienced what Petrino put it through, maybe the 2012 subject matter still hits too close to home.

Or maybe that's not for someone else to decide, because everyone around Petrino is seemingly talking openly about it. 

"We all make mistakes in life," Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek said. "Sometimes, you make mistakes in a very public forum being a head football coach at an SEC school. If he's working in a bank and he makes that mistake, that's a mistake between him and his spouse."

In the heart of the Bible Belt, in the SEC, it's a fireable offense -- at least for a while. I visited Petrino when he got back into coaching at Western Kentucky in 2013. We ate lunch in a crowded restaurant. A coach sometimes considered a bit of a tyrant poured his heart out. Back in his office, he became emotional when talking about his son who was mocked as he walked across Arkansas' campus following his father's firing. 

What became apparent: Petrino's wife, Becky, was and is still with him. 

"She had to go, 'OK, you can go back into that [at Arkansas].' It gives me nightmares," Bazzel said. 

Before that, a return to Louisville in 2014 (36-26 over five seasons) didn't quite measure up to Petrino's breakout debut with the Cardinals from 2003-2006 (41-9). Lamar Jackson won the Heisman under Petrino in 2016, but two years later he was fired after a 2-8 season.

Pittman, that man without an ego, walked up to Petrino on the field prior to a Razorbacks' game against Missouri State in 2022.

"I thanked him for what he did for Arkansas," Pittman said. "All the recruiting for the [2011] Sugar Bowl [team that went 10-3] ... That was all Bobby. It gave Arkansas relevance. I thanked him for that."

Petrino was invited back to a Little Rock Touchdown Club gathering five years ago. Petrino waived his speaking fee. He was welcomed warmly and clearly emotional upon his return. 

"I wanted to come here and apologize to everybody," Petrino said that day, "and truly tell you how sorry I was for how it ended." 

A standing ovation followed. 

If the healing hadn't begun by then, it was in the starting gates. Petrino knows. Pittman knows. It took a coach without a drop of self-importance in his blood to hire the best offensive coordinator available to him at the time --- to turn the Hogs around and perhaps take his job. 

"It goes back to what might have been," Bazzel said of Petrino. "When he left it's like a time capsule. It's just that we never got to see the end of it."