Petrino's Reputation Hurts Recruiting

[Rivercard]

file this under KARMA

per collegefootballtalk.com

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How does it make a high school football player feel when he turns on the TV and hears NFL players referring to his new coach as a coward?

It makes him feel like it's time to find a new coach.

At least, it does in the case of cornerback Ugo Okpara of John Foster Dulles High in Sugar Land, Texas. Okpara had committed to Arkansas, but he changed his mind and chose Boston College after he heard what Atlanta Falcons players were saying about their old coach and Arkansas' new coach, Bobby Petrino.

"The problem with Arkansas was the reputation of coach Petrino," Okpara said, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "Leaving during the season and not staying there and his name not being highly thought of like when he was at Louisville. I didn't want to play ball for a coach that had a reputation like that. That kind of drove me away from Arkansas."

Will more recruits follow suit? When highly respected players like Warrick Dunn are bashing a coach publicly, it's hard to imagine that it won't have an effect.

 

[Skkorpion]

Oh, this is such nonsense.

A recruit decommitted after a coaching change. Horrors! Like that's never happened before.

Erickson has been a job-jumping cheating coach his whole life. Mike Price is no prize. Urban Meyer leapfrogged over cast-aside recruits and schools in a mad dash for big bucks and coaching stardom. And Rick Neuheisel, he of no honesty or character at all, will soon be coaching UCLA.

Petrino will win if he's a good coach. From what I saw at Louisville, he is.