Over 200 people instantly rallied to save Bobby Petrino's job when it first became likely that he would be fired for contact detrimental to the image of the University of Arkansas. Those who follow the Atlanta Falcons perhaps could have told Arkansas fans that Bobby was something of a loose cannon.
Out of curiosity I looked at websites related to Arkansas to see how the Petrino firing was impacting their recruiting this year. Needless to say, things are looking bleak. But in the process I stumbled across something that to me was even more stunning than the firing. Right now, as of this year, Arkansas has offered scholarships to over 100 class of 2013 football players. I know some schools (read Tech) are selective and tend to target particular types of students and players, whereas other schools carpet bomb entire regions of players with scholarship offers but this is ridiculous.
Arkansas seems to fall into that group of particular SEC schools that will offer three times as many scholarships as they can possibly honor in a given year and then pick and choose how they are going to treat individual students. As for the Petrino firing, hiring the man in the first place for an institution of higher education was questionable given his track record. What is more amazing is that after all he did he probably could have held onto his job, given his winning record, had he not hired his mistress. Everything else he had done up to that point would have perhaps brought severe reprimand but not a firing.
What do you think? Is Arkansas just an extreme case or does the SEC have a problem with the "win at all cost" mindset?