FILE - Jeff Brohm speaks after he was introduced as Louisville football coach in Louisville, Ky., Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022. Louisville opens their season at Georgia Tech on Sept. 1. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)
Bobby Petrino fired as Louisville coach
Louisville has fired football coach Bobby Petrino two days after the Cardinals lost their seventh game in a row to fall to 2-8.
Athletic director Vince Tyra announced the move Sunday, saying he “did not have the confidence” that Petrino could turn things around next season and that the change “needs to start happening now.”
“We want to thank Bobby for guiding our football program to some of the better seasons we have had historically at UofL during his two separate tenures here,” Tyra said in a statement. “However, at this time, we feel the program needs different leadership and we owe it to our student-athletes and fans to get this turned around.”
Louisville’s season has bottomed out during a seven-game losing streak and a five-game stretch of ACC defeats by at least 18 points, including blowout losses to Clemson and Syracuse over the past two weeks. The Cardinals are averaging 21.7 points per game this season, lowest in the ACC. This comes after they led the conference in scoring each of the past two seasons.
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“It was clear the players weren’t responding,” Tyra said at a Sunday afternoon news conference. “The coaches’ and the players’ efforts have to go in the right direction, but I didn’t feel it was going that way.”
Petrino’s second stint at Louisville wasn’t nearly as successful as the first, as the Cardinals lost at least four games in each of the past five seasons. He went 41-9 in four seasons at Louisville from 2003 to 2006 before leaving to coach the Atlanta Falcons for 10 games during the 2007 season.
Petrino coached Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Lamar Jackson in 2016, but the teams of his second tenure were plagued by poor offensive line play and porous defenses. This season, the Cardinals have allowed 50 points or more in five of 10 games, including a 77-16 loss at Clemson on Nov. 3.
Regarded as one of the game’s best offensive minds, Petrino returned to Louisville in January 2014 when former Cardinals athletic director Tom Jurich signed him to a seven-year contract that paid $3.5 million annually. According to the terms of his contract, the school owes Petrino more than $14 million in a buyout.
