As former head coach Bobby Petrino returns to Arkansas to serve as offense coordinator under Sam Pittman, he isn’t looking to step on any toes. In fact, he’shoping to work hand-in-hand with Pittman and the rest of the staff while implementing the offense, a process that wasn’t always easy for him at Texas A&M. While serving as the offensive coordinator for the Aggies this past season, Petrino faced some challenges adapting to an offense that head coach Jimbo Fisher had in place at the time.
“You know when I took the job at A&M, Jimbo wanted to keep the same terminology and call things the same way they did,” Petrino said. “It was hard. It was hard on me. I was staying up all night. I can remember staying up all night just getting ready for the first scrimmage. I woke up at 2 a.m. in the morning to get ready to call plays for the first scrimmage just understanding what the terminology was, what the formation was. And it was different. “It was not only calling the plays different but the formations. The way they called formations was probably different than anybody else that I’ve ever been around. Normally you call the strength where your tight end’s going to align. There it’s where your slot receiver is going to align. Just getting the connection to be able to do that was very difficult, but I worked hard at it.
Though his lone season at Texas A&M wasn’t without adversity, Petrino enjoyed the opportunity to embrace the teaching side of the job again. “I thought we had a pretty good year,” Petrino said. “We went through a couple quarterbacks, which was hard. But I really enjoyed it. When Jimbo lost his job, I thought I wanted to still coach, just because of how much I enjoyed being in the classroom with the quarterbacks, spending time with the offense, just coaching football, teaching. It was fun being back in the meeting room and teaching. I started getting in this profession as a teacher, so it was really fun to get back and do that.”
