Former Louisville and Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino is heading back to the FBS level for his first assistant coaching position since 2002, when he was the offensive coordinator at Auburn.
Amid reports that he was involved in the search for Texas A&M’s open offensive coordinator job, Petrino is heading to Las Vegas to finalize a deal to coach under Barry Odom as the OC at UNLV, according to Chris Low of ESPN.
Petrino is coming off three seasons at the FCS level as head coach of Missouri State. He went 18–15 with the Bears, making the NCAA FCS football tournament in his first two years, but then going 5–6 in ’22.
According to Low, Petrino had discussions with Texas A&M and other schools, but he is ultimately opting to take over Odom’s offense. The move will give the staff a pair of former SEC head coaches. Petrino had a successful 34–17 run at Arkansas, before the April 2012 motorcycle accident that exposed an inappropriate relationship with football staffer and former Arkansas volleyball player Jessica Dorrell. He was fired days later.
In 2013, Petrino returned to the sport, taking over the program at Western Kentucky for one season and then returning to Louisville, the program he led from ’03 to ’06. The Cardinals made four straight bowl games from ’14 to ’17 before bottoming out to a 2–8 record with an 0–7 ACC mark, which led to his subsequent firing.
Odom was 25–25 at Missouri from 2016 to ’19. He spent the last three seasons as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator at Arkansas.
