Bobby Petrino finding his name high on more lists.
Last week, NFL.com had Bobby Petrino ranked in the top 16 of college coaches who develop NFL talent. It looks like Petrino has found himself highly ranked on another list this off-season as we inch closer and closer to the start of the 2016 college football season. This week, Athlon ranked all 128 FBS coaches, and the Cardinals head coach found himself sitting in the top 15:
If this list was just based on the X’s and O’s ability of a coach, Petrino would be ranked No. 2 in the ACC over Clemson’s Dabo Swinney. In his second stint with the Cardinals, Petrino – regarded as one of the nation’s top offensive-minded coaches – is 17-9 over the last two seasons and has Louisville projected to finish among the nation's top 25 teams for 2016. Petrino also has stops on his resume from Arkansas (2008-11) and WKU (2013), with a four-year run at Louisville from 2003-06. Entering 2016, Petrino has the program on stable ground and poised to be a consistent top 25 team over the next few seasons.
The only other ACC coaches to rank ahead of Petrino are Fisher and Swinney, to no surprise. Fisher comes in at #7 while Swinney sits at #9. I'm sure as a year or two goes by and Petrino continues to build this program up, he will find himself within the top 10.
With all the pre-season hype around Lamar Jackson, all of the returning starters on defense, and the hype around Petrino's coaching, I'm stoked to see the Cardinals crash the party and finish as one of the last 4 standing in the CFP (hey, Cleveland actually won a championship in something, so it wouldn't be the weirdest thing to happen this year).
