College football’s most tired axiom: “It’s not about the Xs and Os, it’s about the Jimmies and Joes.” But it’s overplayed for a good reason — it’s true. That’s the reason the difference-making players in college football, both proven and projected, get paid more than some NFL players.
So, is the amount of hope invested in a new offensive coordinator justified?
A normal coach with Petrino’s baggage would have been long gone and forgotten awhile ago. Walking out on a team mid-season to take another job
— which Petrino did to the Atlanta Falcons — for most coaches would be an unpardonable transgression. Getting fired from the job he left the Falcons to take, for having an affair with a subordinate employee, who happened to be the wife of another subordinate employee, is usually an automatic HR disqualifier for future employment. Those two in succession at the time seemed likely to be the end for Bobby Petrino as a football coach outside of an FCS program somewhere.
But: sports will forgive just about anything for players and coaches who prove they make a difference. Fired in 2011, Petrino was back in the game at Western Kentucky by 2013 and back as a head coach at Louisville by 2014. Contrast that with Butch Davis, who never coached anywhere of significance again after departing Chapel Hill.
That’s the biggest question mark for UNC football heading into 2026. One the one hand, Petrino’s a proven offensive mind whose offenses reliably produce. On the other hand, UNC’s Jimmies and Joes on offense are a big reason preseason predictions for UNC’s 2026 team have been a collective “thumbs down.” The oddsmakers place the wins total at 4.5. One CBS Sports analyst says UNC will finish dead last in the ACC. ESPN’s Bill Connelly, author of SP+, a widely cited predictive metric, projects 5.3 wins, largely on the basis of an offense his system thinks could be one of the 10 worst within the P4.
Connelly’s system doesn’t care who’s coaching, looking instead at returning production and recruiting profiles to make a guesstimate. Clearly, the number-crunchers at the sportsbooks and outlets like ESPN just don’t see much to work with on offense in Chapel Hill. Enter Petrino, who these days has settled comfortably into a second-fiddle role as an offensive rehab specialist. UNC will make his third straight stint as an offensive coordinator at a program needing an offensive overhaul. On that front, he delivered at his two previous stops.
Texas AM’s offense in 2022 finished 72nd in SP+, 75th in FEI, and 75th in FPI. Jimbo Fisher relented on play-calling duties and imported Petrino from FCS Missouri State to run his offense. In 2023, Texas AM jumped to 20th, 23rd, and 31st, respectively, in those rankings. The difference wasn’t due to yardage; yards per play only increased from 5.73 to 6.0, and yards per game increased from 364 to 407. The big difference came from scoring, as Texas AM went from 33 touchdowns in 2022 to 51 in 2023, averaging 11 more points a game. Much of that increase came in the form of explosive plays in the passing game. Who was Petrino’s QB that season? Max Johnson for eight games until he was injured, then Connor Weigman.
Texas AM moved on from Jimbo Fisher at the end of 2023, and Petrino moved back to Arkansas, whose 2023 offense in some ways resembled UNC’s last season: 98th in FEI and 97th in FPI. Interestingly, SP+ saw that offense differently, ranking it 56th. At any rate, in 2024, those rankings improved to 40th (SP+), 48th (FEI), and 41st (FPI). Last season saw another big step up the ladder, finishing 16th, 16th, and 14th respectively in those measures.
Whereas Petrino moved the needle through the air in College Station, he did it on the ground in Arkansas. While the passing offense put up 1200 more yards in 2024 than it did in 2023, it scored six fewer touchdowns through the air. Meanwhile, the rushing offense posted 34 touchdowns in 2024 compared to nine in 2023. Yards per rush increased from 3.63 in 2023 (109th nationally) to 4.86 in 2024 (34th) to 5.69 in 2025 (3rd). As a rushing offense, Arkansas over two seasons went from a team that couldn’t run to save its life to one opponents could stop. A fair take-away from those two experiences would be Petrino takes what the roster offers and gets the most out of it.
Skeptics can certainly point to the talent on those two rosters. Texas AM in 2023 fielded an elite roster full of blue chips, ranking 4th nationally in “blue chip ratio” at 73%. Seven out of every ten players being a blue chip helps, especially when enough of those are future NFL offensive linemen. Arkansas 2024 and 2025 did not sport that kind of roster, with 21% and 16% blue chips respectively. What Arkansas did have was Taylen Green, entering his fourth year of college ball after three seasons at Boise State. Green at the NFL Combine this year posted a 4.36 40 yard dash, second only to Michael Vick, and posted combine records for QB in other athletic measures. In short, Green’s a freak athlete, and Petrino deployed him to devastating effect.
UNC doesn’t have the sort of roster depth available to Petrino at Texas AM. Michael Lombardi did not grab a QB in the portal with anything close to the immediate impact of Taylen Green. What UNC does have amounts to Jordan Shipp, a lot of question marks along the offensive line, more question marks at the skill positions, and one experienced QB coming off of injury backed by three guys with 26 pass attempts and three picks at the college level. And Bobby Petrino.
One could assume Petrino took a hard look at the roster and assured himself he had tools to work with before accepting the UNC OC gig. One could assume that Freddie Kitchens made otherwise intriguing talents invisible in his kluge of an offense. One could assume the sort of offensive rehabilitation Petrino oversaw in College Station and Fayetteville manifests in Chapel Hill this coming season. Put all three of those together, and one can see how an offense that ranked 124th (SP+), 103rd (FEI) and 99th (FPI) last season jumps more than 50 spots in the rankings this coming season.
Still, it all works back to the talent on the roster. Even gifted coordinators can only accomplish so much, and even average defensive coordinators know how to exploit any weak links in a two-deep. No one really knows what sort of weapons Petrino has at the skill positions or the offensive line’s capacity to create running lanes or to defend their passer. Evidence in support of those propositions (or against them) won’t be available until noon EDT on August 29th.
We do know that the Belichick Experiment at this point depends heavily on Petrino working magic with the offense. And we do know that, on paper, that magic will have to happen with an average collection of Jimmies and Joes. Counting on any coach to turn players into something they aren’t usually doesn’t work out well in college football. Last preseason featured a lot of hope that Belichick, NFL GOAT, would convert a sketchy roster into a winning one, with predictable results. This preseason, UNC football banks heavily on Bobby Petrino converting a lot of question marks into a winning unit.
All that said, it could happen, and if anyone can make it happen, it’s Petrino. And he needs to if this experiment wants to see a Year Three.
