Bobby Petrino has done lots of very unpleasant things in his career, so this latest story won't come as much of a surprise to anyone who's been paying attention.
3-Star South Carolina RB Matt Coburn (who was selected as South Carolina's Mr. Football as a senior) committed to Petrino's Louisville team eight months ago, then immediately shut down his recruitment. Then, two days before national signing day, Coburn got a call from Louisville assistant Tony Grantham (Petrino apparently didn't feel like making the call himself) telling him that actually, he wouldn't be getting a scholarship, and the team needed to make room for more defensive backs. However, Coburn was welcome to grayshirt and delay his acceptance to give himself a shot next year.
Needless to say, Coburn wasn't thrilled, and his high school coach was absolutely furious, torching Petrino in comments to GoUpstate.com:
I tell my players when you commit, you commit. That's what a commitment is. Matt's been committed for eight months. It's irritating that men can do this. He's just a boy, a young man. He doesn't know how to understand it. He's very upset. Some things have opened up but that's not the way it should be. It's not right. Louisville is only going to hurt themselves doing this. Everybody knows not just what a good player Matt is but what a good person he is.
That is not the way to do business and if that's the way to do business we don't want to deal with them. He (Petrino) won't be able to recruit my school anymore and I imagine there will be some other coaches that will say the same thing. Trust factor is just not there. They've known about these three DBs wanting to go to the NFL for weeks now. To use that as an excuse doesn't hold water with me.
Bobby Petrino's reputation hasn't been worth much for a long time, but now it might start having a real effect on his ability to recruit and retain players.
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