Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino is in serious hot water after admitting on Thursday that he carried on an "inappropriate" relationship with Jessica Dorrell, a 25-year-old athletic department staffer, and lied about her involvement in a motorcycle accident.
Petrino was placed on paid administrative leave by Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long as he devises a plan on how to deal with what could be the biggest decision of his career. Long must decide whether he can overlook Petrino's extreme discretions because he's successful on the football field; or whether morals and integrity do have a place in SEC football.
Looking at all of the details it's easy to surmise that Petrino should be fired, but it's not quite that simple when it comes to the big business of college football.
Petrino has done a lot of wrong in the last week. He got involved in a one-motorcycle accident on April 1st that left him with broken ribs and cracked vertebrae. That sort of accident seems painful enough, but it's the aftermath that truly ails Petrino and the rest of the Arkansas football community.
In a press conference after the accident, Petrino told reporters that he was riding his motorcycle solo and that a kind lady flagged down drivers after seeing him crash. What Petrino left out of the initial story was that lady who flagged down motorists was Dorrell, a student-athlete development coordinator for football.
Petrino admitted in a statement on Thursday night that he and Dorrell had an "inappropriate relationship," but it's more complicated than that. Petrino carrying on an extramarital affair could violate the terms of his contract, which has a termination clause in it for Petrino "engaging in conduct, as solely determined by the university, which is clearly contrary to the character and responsibilities of a person occupying the position of head football coach or which negatively or adversely affects the reputation of the (university's) athletics programs in any way."
A smart legal mind could likely prove that a public affair with another employee of the university is more than enough cause to dump Petrino, but where it gets particularly sticky for the football coach is his recent decision to promote Dorrell.
Dorrell, a former volleyball player at Arkansas, was working as a fundraiser for the Razorbacks Foundation before being promoted to the position within the football program. At the time of her promotion, Petrino called her "a great addition to our football program" and said that she is "extremely organized and has a professional approach."
Did Petrino knowingly promote his mistress within a public university? That certainly seems to be the case and doesn't reflect well on the state's highest paid employee -- earning more than $3.5 million per year.
All of those mishaps plus lying to his employer about the nature of his accident puts his job security in a very tenuous position. The issue at hand though is whether winning is the most important thing for a SEC football program or whether having some sort of moral integrity actually plays a part.
By simply hiring Petrino, Arkansas set forth a notion that it didn't really care about a person's character as long as he won football games. That much was clear when the Razorbacks nabbed Petrino after he abandoned the Atlanta Falcons 13 games into the season without even telling his players face-to-face.
He's kept up that same low-level character performance at Arkansas, but he has also been quite successful. He's 21-5 in the last two seasons at Arkansas, including finishing fifth last year, and has the program poised to have its best season in decades in 2012.
Can Long and the rest of the Arkansas athletic department live with themselves employing a person of Petrino's character as long as he wins football games? Can Long learn to trust Petrino again after he lied to him about the details of his motorcycle accident?
It's the decision that will shape the careers of the athletic director and the head football coach. Common sense would suggest that winning overrules all in the football obsessed SEC, but Petrino certainly hasn't made this easy for anyone to swallow.
He probably has a 50/50 chance to survive this ordeal and keep his job; though most outside the college football bubble would argue he should be fired.
Petrino could survive this ordeal but he'll be ruined by this type of behavior eventually. It might not doom him right now or even at the end of what should be a successful football season in 2012. But once he stops winning -- and eventually that will happen -- he will be dismissed quickly due to the sum of his digressions.
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