11/11/2018 football Edit

Petrino Era is over at Louisville

Howie Lindsey • CardinalSports

Publisher

Howie has been running CardinalSports.com since 2003. He's also the host of the morning drive radio show on 790 KRD, the state's most-powerful sports radio station.

Louisville coach Bobby Petrino has been removed as the head coach of the program.

Louisville fell to 2-8 on the season with an embarrassing 54-23 loss at Syracuse Friday night. That followed a 77-16 loss to Clemson the previous week. Louisville has two games left in the season, No. 14 NC State and No. 11 Kentucky.

Petrino arrived at Louisville in 1998 as the Cardinals' offensive coordinator and devised the offense that led to Chris Redman throwing for 4,042 yards and 29 touchdowns.

After three seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars and a season with Auburn, Petrino returned as Louisville's head coach in 2003. He took over for former mentor John L. Smith and led Louisville to unprecedented success, rolling to a 41-9 overall record including two Conference USA titles and trips to the Gator and Orange Bowls.

During his final few years at Louisville Petrino was pursued by other schools including publicized negotiations with Auburn and LSU. Petrino left Louisville to coach the Atlanta Falcons, but let midseason and was hired by Arkansas in 2008. He transformed Arkansas' program, going 5-7, then 8-5, then 10-3 and 11-2 with bids to the Sugar and Cotton Bowls in those final two seasons.

Petrino was fired on April 10, 2012 after it was revealed he had an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. After sitting out the 2012 season, Petrino was hired on Dec. 10, 2012 to lead Western Kentucky and immediately improved the Hilltoppers to an 8-4 record.

Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich re-hired Petrino to lead the Louisville program on Jan. 9, 2014 after Charlie Strong left Louisville to go to Texas.

The Cardinals immediately won nine games the first season, and were 8-5 the season after. In 2016, Louisville started the season 9-1 and were ranked in the Top 10 before a dramatic fall in the final two weeks of the regular season and in the Citrus Bowl.

After winning a share of the ACC Atlantic Division in 2016, Louisville fell to third in 2017 as significant defensive issues plagued the team and led to an 8-5 record.