Real Reason for Bobby Petrino at A&M Probably Not What You're Thinking

By Andy Hodges,

2023-03-28

Jimbo Fisher's real reason for hiring former Hogs coach may not be calling plays.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Whether anybody wants to notice or not, the Bobby Petrino down at Texas A&M is not the same one Arkansas hired in 2007.

That was pretty obvious when the Razorbacks played his Missouri State team last season.

Oh, he can still come up with offensive game plans and little things dealing with quarterbacks in an always-intriguing way that usually works.

Exactly who calls what play during a game is over-rated anyway. Jimbo Fisher probably wanted to tap into that football nerd Petrino is. Sit and watch him break down some offensive film and you'll get the idea what the Aggies really wanted to tap.

All this media attention going off down the worn-out path of play-calling is fun for fans and folks who don't know how the game works these days.

Petrino was fascinating to watch. He did it for Hog fans every week on his television show, in much more detail than any of these coaches' shows you see now, that have really fallen into a complete waste of time that's recorded immediately when a game concludes.

It was probably a pain for coaches to have to deal with coming to a television studio or going through all that the day after a game anyway.

More and more we see coaches trying to get away from so much media attention. Shoot, Petrino's always been that way.

There was enough of him in Arkansas over his four years on the job to get the idea he didn't really like press conferences and viewed them as a distraction. He had assistants interviewed more than any coach since then.

The guess is pretty simple that he's completely happy letting Jimbo deal with all that stuff at A&M. Leave him alone and let him break down film and put offensive game plans together and draw a million dollars a year.

He's probably answers all those self-important questions about his offense working at higher levels and that stuff. The guess is he was getting close to retiring anyway.

The gig in College Station simply gives him an opportunity to get paid a lot of money to have a lot less pressure being out of the spotlight and doing what he loves to do the most — watch film and come up with offensive game plans.

Then let Jimbo answer all the questions.

If you ever put on a headset during one of those games for three minutes you'd get an idea of how things go anyway. How anybody figures out anything with all that jabbering is anybody's guess.

A lot of folks haven't figured out all of that play-calling stuff has changed dramatically from even 10 years ago. Most of the time the coach that called the play doesn't know for sure what play is going to get run .

Quarterbacks better have the ability to make pre-snap reads and post-snap reactions to make a play happen or it's not going to be a good night .

One of the things Petrino has always had is being able to teach players what those reads and reactions should be while studying film to the point where the execution becomes pretty much automatic.

He still will see things during a game nobody else sees. That's the savant part and it's a safe bet he and Jimbo will be communicating during a game .

And Petrino likely wasn't hired for what happens for a few hours on a Saturday.

He knows the result of those hours are hanging on what is taught Monday-Friday .

Petrino is one of the best I've seen at that in over 50 years of covering college athletics. He's not even the best one-game coach for the Razorbacks (Lou Holtz is still the best at that) and he certainly can't handle a season of managing everything like Ken Hatfield.

But he is incredible at putting together a game plan and teaching quarterbacks .

Which is probably what the Aggies are willing to spend a million a year to get .

It isn't to see who calls what play on third down .

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