Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

Bobby Petrino's across-the-field gesturing and apparent cursing of LSU's Les Miles, as well as their brief handshake after the game, was among the big topics Saturday when the LSU faithful were discussing the Tigers 41-17 win Friday over Arkansas.

Hokie Gajan, the former LSU and New Orleans Saints running back who now does color commentary for the Saints radio broadcasts, was part of a call-in show Saturday on New Orleans' powerful WWL-AM radio and led the callers in a grilling of Petrino's actions, calling it unsportsmanlike. "Coward" and other terms were used.

Maybe the Louisianans' reaction doesn't mean anything to Arkansas Razorback fans.

But that sideline tirade — whatever reason prompted it — won't be received well in areas where Arkansas needs to step up its recruiting.

At least Jeff Palermo, a New Orleans blogger and brief guest on Gajan's show, put some perspective into Petrino's reaction.

As Palermo noted, we don't know what might exist in terms of Petrino's relationship with Miles, and perhaps some bad blood over recruiting (Palermo specifically noted Petrino's concern with "negative" recruiting by Miles) prompted some of the Arkansas coach's tantrum. The "running up the score" excuse seems to be far-fetched for a number of reasons: the first being that Petrino wasn't exactly the type to shut down his offense at Louisville in piling up big numbers; and Arkansas didn't hesitate to hit the mid-to-high 40s in its last three home games.

Also, as Palermo pointed out, Petrino had been through one of the hardest weeks in his coaching career, trying to keep a team together that had lost a well-liked teammate. In Arkansas it was obvious to anyone how hard Garrett Uekman's death had hit Petrino, and the head coach refused to do any media interviews in the run-up to the game.

We in the Tiger Stadium weren't privy to all that the telecast offered — camera views of Petrino during the game, his halftime interview with Tracy Wolfson and the like — but we're told by people who watched that he seemed unusually on edge the entire game.

In other circumstances, it would be easy to pile on the Hogs and Petrino — the defense for seemingly quitting in the fourth quarter when LSU went up 31-17, and the head coach for losing his cool in an unseemly way. But we'll cut some slack knowing that when the game was getting away from the Hogs early in the fourth quarter, everything the Hogs had managed to hide away to focus on the game at hand suddenly was present again. An emotional collapse ensued.

But, that said, were Petrino's actions necessary? This couldn't have been handled privately between the two head coaches in a phone call, or at the SEC meetings in Destin? Petrino had to know the cameras were on him, catching his every action — as they have since he arrived from his short stint in the NFL and Atlanta to Arkansas.

A lot of folks in the South don't cotton to anyone using some of the language the coach was apparently employing in his effort to be noticed late in Friday's game. We're pretty sure he wasn't saying "Fine then, make a field goal."

In fact, Petrino has to know that the way he's viewed publicly, from the way he treats players and coaches in practice when recruits or TV cameras are around, to his sideline demeanor in games, can determine whether a recruit chooses to play for his program.