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Bobby Petrino is leaving Missouri State to become the offensive coordinator at UNLV, the school announced Thursday. Here’s what you need to know:

• Petrino has coached the Bears for three seasons, leading the program to an 18-15 record and two FCS playoffs appearances.
• He joins a Las Vegas staff led by Barry Odom, the former head coach at Missouri, giving the Rebels two former SEC coaches.
• UNLV went 5-7 overall in 2022 with a 3-5 record in the Mountain West Conference.

Backstory

Petrino has 14 years of head-coaching experience while working at Louisville (2003-06, 2014-18), Arkansas (2008-11) and Western Kentucky (2013). He also coached 13 games with the Atlanta Falcons in 2007. He lasted less than one full NFL season before leaving Atlanta to take a job with Arkansas.

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For four seasons, it was a perfect marriage. After 13 wins in his first two seasons, Petrino went 21-5 in 2010 and 2011, taking the Razorbacks to their first BCS bowl and their first 11-win season since 1977. Things took a turn when Petrino was involved in a motorcycle crash on April 1, 2012, and lied to the school and the media about the details of the crash. Arkansas later discovered Petrino was having an extramarital affair with a student-athlete development coordinator in the football program who was on the back of his motorcycle during the crash.

The Razorbacks fired Petrino nine days after the crash due to his dishonesty on multiple occasions about the incident.

Petrino coached at Western Kentucky for one season before returning to Louisville in 2014. His second stint with the Cardinals resulted in the school firing him in November 2018 with two games left in the season. Louisville was on a seven-game skid at the time of Petrino’s firing.

Why is Petrino heading to UNLV?

Petrino’s shine had dulled after going winless in the ACC at Louisville in 2018, but after a year off, he had Missouri State in the FCS top 15 in consecutive seasons, including a shared Missouri Valley Conference title in Year 1 when the league had five top 25 teams. The Bears dropped to 5-6 in 2022 but nearly beat Arkansas in their lone FBS matchup.

Petrino’s controversial exits from Louisville, Atlanta and Arkansas still follow him, but so does the offensive expertise and quarterback development that earned him those opportunities. Odom handed the reins of his offense to Josh Heupel when he first took the Missouri job and Heupel parlayed that into a head coaching job at UCF. Odom is taking a similar approach in his second head-coaching job. – Ubben

Required reading

(Photo: Nelson Chenault / USA Today)

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