Bobby Petrino calls for a law to prevent mid-season coach firings

2025 has been the year of mid-season head coach firings. Notable power-four programs such as LSU, Penn State, Florida, Arkansas, and Virginia Tech all let go of their head coach while the season was actively happening.

One of these beneficiaries of a mid-season firing, Arkansas‘ Bobby Petrino, took to his media opportunity on Monday to claim that a law should be made to prevent this from happening. Head coach Sam Pittman was fired following the Razorbacks’ 2-3 start to the season, elevating Petrino from offensive coordinator to interim head coach.

“You know, it’s a hard situation to jump into and have to take over like that,” Petrino said. “My first thing to say is that they need to make a new law that you can’t do that in the middle of the year. That would be a great thing for everybody. Probably not going to happen, now that there are gonna be nine conference games.

“Can you imagine that now? Nine conference games in this conference. They’re gonna have to keep building a pot to pay off guys. That’s gonna be incredible. I feel like ‘boy this has been a hard experience,’ but then you look at it on the other side like man, this has been really cool.”

Arkansas has been competitive in all five games under Petrino

“I get to know the defensive players and I get to relax a bit so they get to know me,” Petrino continued. “I think it’s been all about trying to get them to continue to improve themselves. Continue to put a better resume on video, and they really bought into the fact that they believe they watch themselves being better and playing better. It gives them a better opportunity for whatever the future brings. I think they’ve bought into that, and it’s been pretty cool.”

Although Petrino is 0-5 as Arkansas‘ interim head coach, the Razorbacks are being outscored by just 19 points in that span. Four of its five losses have come by less than three points, with its loss to LSU on Saturday coming by just one point.

Petrino has made it well known that he would like to be elevated to Arkansas‘ full-time head coach for the second time, but other candidates such as USF‘s Alex Golesh, Tulane‘s Jon Sumrall, North Texas‘ Eric Morris, Memphis‘ Ryan Silverfield, and UNLV‘s Dan Mullen have emerged in the search.

He and his Razorbacks finish the regular season with conference games against No. 10 Texas and Missouri. If they lose both games and finish with a 2-10 record, it will mark the worst season for Arkansas since 2019.