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DALLAS — Andrew Armstrong was playing Call of Duty when he saw the reports rolling in.
The Arkansas receiver knew that he’d have a new offensive coordinator the following season, but he was just a bit surprised with the person rumored to be linked to the job.
“I said, ‘Bobby Petrino?’” Armstrong said. “I go look at the stats, and I said, ‘Bring him. Bring him in. I don’t care. Bring him in, man.’ That’s when I first found out. I was like, I’m ready.”
Arkansas was ready. Er, desperate. It was ready for anybody to fix last year’s train wreck of an offense, even if it meant bringing back Petrino more than a decade after his historically awkward firing as Arkansas’ head coach in the spring of 2012.
Bring him back? Oh yeah. That’s exactly what Arkansas did, and we’re all better for it.
Well, time will tell if the SEC will agree with that sentiment if he turns around an Arkansas offense that averaged just 26.6 points per game last season. Most recently, those Petrino stats that Armstrong mentioned included improving the Texas A&M offense by 11 points per game. The Aggies had a top-25 scoring offense despite the fact that they started 3 quarterbacks multiple games because of injuries.
Mind you, that was with questions about Petrino’s level of control in the first year of Jimbo Fisher’s career as a head coach in which he didn’t have primary play-calling duties. At Arkansas, that won’t be an issue with Sam Pittman. He treats Petrino like another head coach.
“I had Barry (Odom) before that I could bump some head coaching questions off. As I get older the questions aren’t as many, but — or as I get more years of being a head coach. But it’s like a security blanket. I got Bobby there. I had Barry there … that I can run off things. Both of those guys are not, ‘hey, we need to do this, this, this,'” Pittman said. “I’ll ask them a question and I want their opinion and they know it. We’ll agree on it or won’t, but we’re both grown men. If we do, we do. If we don’t, we don’t. We move on down the road.
“That’s been very beneficial to me, and I really like him and I have a lot of respect for him. He spends more time in my office than anybody, and I apologize to him. I don’t know if he likes it or not. I do make him talk to me a lot.”
The player that Petrino talks with the most is new quarterback Taylen Green. Petrino handpicked the Boise State transfer to run his offense in 2024, which was why he represented the Hogs in Dallas after his arrival in January.
Green already knew Petrino as a recruit because Missouri State, where Petrino coached from 2020-22, was his first college offer. Needless to say, Green has been a Petrino fan well before he arrived in Fayetteville.
“I believe he’s the best offensive coordinator or offensive mind in the country,” Green said. “I’m grateful to have this opportunity.”
With that opportunity, of course, includes the full Petrino experience. That fiery nature is still evident, albeit with some different context than when Petrino was last in Fayetteville as a head coach. There’s no mistaking his presence, which Arkansas players learned upon his arrival. “It’s like a classroom when the teacher walks in,” Green said.
“You know,” Armstrong said. “When he first walked into the room when we first met him, he said, ‘Sit up. Make sure you pay attention. Lock in.’ Every time he walks into the room, if people are talking and we see him, nobody is talkin’. We’re ready to pay attention … we all want to learn from Coach Petrino because of the history of the offense at Arkansas when he was here and when Missouri State played Arkansas here. We just ready.”
Petrino’s discipline will extend beyond the classroom. His ability to maximize Green’s potential will be discussed ad nauseam in Arkansas.
And if that includes the occasional “cuss out,” well, nobody will be surprised, including Green. It didn’t take him long to get some tough coaching from his new OC.
“The first scrimmage,” Green said. “I rolled out, I threw it across my body, and it was not smart. Right when I ran to the sidelines, I already knew. I deserved it.”
To be fair, Green said that with a smile. There’s a clear respect factor. Petrino earned that with how meticulous he is with details. He gave Green drills to work on his footwork and showed him cut-ups of his throwing motion to make sure the new Arkansas signal-caller is maximizing his 6-6 frame.
“The thing he tells me all the time is, ‘Yeah, he’s gonna get on to you, but it’s coming out of a place of love,’” Green said. “He’s not gonna cuss you out just to cuss you out … he expects greatness. That’s what I like.”
Greatness for Arkansas in 2024 would be navigating a tricky schedule and getting to 7 or 8 wins. The bar for greatness is lower than it was when Petrino was last in Fayetteville. Since Petrino’s post-2011 exit, Arkansas has just 1 Top-25 finish. That came in 2021, which set the wheels in motion for Pittman to receive an extension.
But heading into 2024, there’s no denying that another 4-8 season would be curtains on the Pittman era. Petrino might have the biggest say in changing that. A message board fantasy is Arkansas’ new reality.
Time heals all wounds. No wound was greater for Arkansas than an offense that finished 69th in scoring and No. 116 in FBS in yards/play last season. In an ideal world, Petrino will heal multiple Arkansas wounds. Time will tell if he can do that.
At the very least, the Hogs opted for the juiciest of options.
“Bring him in, man.”
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
